Whodunnit? - Final Verdict (Seventies TV Season)

The introduction to this series of posts about 1970s TV shows can be found here: https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/seventies-tv-season-introduction

Whodunnit? was a fairly long-running (1972 to 1978) and popular show with a format where a mystery was acted out by actors and a panel of celebrities tried to work out who did the crime. The only variation in the format was that there was a varying amount of audience of participation as the show progressed: in series 1 the whole audience joined in, and in this one which was made towards the end, there is a member of the public sitting on the panel. Personally I prefer it without the audience joining in because it either means they get some detection whizz who works it out well before the celebs or that it feels like they've taken on some poor little housewife and it's embarrassing. To make it infuriating there is a rule that the one who did the murder can't lie when questioned but everyone else can.

The other major change that happened was the first series was hosted by Edward Woodward and from series 2 on they had the brilliant idea of having Jon Pertwee as the host. If you haven't, you have to see Jon Pertwee on this show. The shirts. The HUGE collars. The medallion. And some of the celebs manage the same effect. I know usually I don't like it when returning actors are in TV shows and distract you from the show by making you wonder who they are, but of course in this show the celebs are there being themselves so you don't have that distraction. And the smoking, my God, the smoking. Just in case any youngsters doubt how normal smoking used to be just get them to look at the entire cast and panel smoking like chimneys on this show. You could get lung cancer just watching it.

My only substantive criticism is that can be rather inconsistent, but this is to be expected with a show with a different story and a different cast each week. I think that some episodes may also represent attitudes and humour of the time which wouldn't be shown on TV nowadays, although I didn't spot anything in this one.

This one, Final Verdict, is in my opinion, one of the absolute best. The premise is that the jurors are invited to meet together twenty years after they convicted a man called Blake to a life sentence, only to find that one of them is actually Blake, and he has poisoned the food they have eaten. The challenge is to work out who Blake is before they all die of the poisoning - the jurors gradually die as the episode progresses. Blake has cut the phone off and disabled the cars so they can't leave.

Of course this plot is absolutely preposterous but of course that's the point. And luckily the show takes full advantage of its ridiculousness. Yet there are a couple of antecedents which perhaps means it's drawing on a greater history than it might otherwise be. Obviously we have Agatha Christie's mysteries, particularly that one called Anything's Better Than The Original Title (in fact the original title is even mentioned in the show). We also have a long history of horror films where the victims find themselves trapped in a set location: Amicus's Vault of Horror probably isn't the best example but is nonetheless the one in my head.

The show quite rightly takes these antecedents and plays it for fun. The characters keep dying in the most dramatic way even as others are being questioned. And I do mean literally groaning and throwing themselves around. This sounds terribly but hamming it up like that is strangely the exact thing to do in this situation, and makes it absolutely perfect entertainment.

This series was the inspiration for a US series of the same name in 1979 and a 1990 UK series called Cluedo. I don't quite understand why but as far as I know it's completely escaped the junking policy of the 1970s to be released complete by Network DVD and there are also pirate episodes on ths internet. Now that Network are no longer around to assert their copyright I expect that's how things will stay.

Perhaps its ubiquity reflects the deserved population of this show. I definitely think you should watch it.

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