When Heroesfirst came out, I did the usual thing of checking the cast list to see if there was anyone I knew whom I liked on the list. “Masi Oka? Okay, he’s in Scrubs. Ali Larter? Ooh, I liked her in Legally Blonde. She’s really hot, too. Greg Grunberg? That’s that pal of JJ Abrams who’s on Alias and everything else JJ Abrams has ever done, isn’t it? Adrian Pasdar? Profit!”
However, I was probably the only person to go: “Oh my God. It’s Ashley Crow! Mickey from Probe!”
Ashley Crow? She plays Claire’s mum Sandra on Heroes. And here she is on Probe:
Probe was one of those shows back in the 90s when the UK SciFi Channel started up that got repeated over and over again because they didn’t have the rights to anything else. So I got to watch a lot of it. It’s one of Isaac Asimov’s few interactions with television and bears all his hallmarks: reclusive scientific genius with few social skills investigates technology-related crimes with the assistance of his secretary Mickey, who brings him out of his shell. It’s basically Murder He Calculated, with a very small amount of Moonlighting thrown in.
It wasn’t a great show, but it was fun. And I liked Ashley Crow in it, even if she did have a thankless role. Below, you can watch all of the first episode on YouTube and there’s a fan site over here if you want more information. I just like the fact that the hot sidekicks of yesteryear still get to work in the 21st century. All that stuff with Sandra telling Claire about when she was a kid and doing what Claire was doing – it almost felt like a nod to Probe.
When Heroesfirst came out, I did the usual thing of checking the cast list to see if there was anyone I knew whom I liked on the list. “Masi Oka? Okay, he’s in Scrubs. Ali Larter? Ooh, I liked her in Legally Blonde. She’s really hot, too. Greg Grunberg? That’s that pal of JJ Abrams who’s on Alias and everything else JJ Abrams has ever done, isn’t it? Adrian Pasdar? Profit!”
However, I was probably the only person to go: “Oh my God. It’s Ashley Crow! Mickey from Probe!”
Ashley Crow? She plays Claire’s mum Sandra on Heroes. And here she is on Probe:
Probe was one of those shows back in the 90s when the UK SciFi Channel started up that got repeated over and over again because they didn’t have the rights to anything else. So I got to watch a lot of it. It’s one of Isaac Asimov’s few interactions with television and bears all his hallmarks: reclusive scientific genius with few social skills investigates technology-related crimes with the assistance of his secretary Mickey, who brings him out of his shell. It’s basically Murder He Calculated, with a very small amount of Moonlighting thrown in.
It wasn’t a great show, but it was fun. And I liked Ashley Crow in it, even if she did have a thankless role. Below, you can watch all of the first episode on YouTube and there’s a fan site over here if you want more information. I just like the fact that the hot sidekicks of yesteryear still get to work in the 21st century. All that stuff with Sandra telling Claire about when she was a kid and doing what Claire was doing – it almost felt like a nod to Probe.
There was a time when every kid with an imagination and who read books would have known about those young detectives the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. If you were a boy, you read about brothers Frank and Joe Hardy and their intrepid investigations; if you were a girl (or called Rob Buckley), you read about Nancy Drew and her equally intrepid investigations.
And when I say was ‘there was a time’, it was a very long time indeed, since the original books came out in the 1920s and continued to be must-reads into the 90s.
Times have moved on, and there have been attempts to update the books, and dramatise them on TV or even in the movies – Nancy Drew getting the latest movie treatment, a slight pisstake with Nancy as a goody twoshoes struggling with modern teens; Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise are still working on a movie with them as the grown-up Hardy Boys. These updates haven’t been totally successful and the characters are fading somewhat into history.
Back in the 70s, though, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries was the Saturday night show to watch. The show starred teen heart-throb (and future TV show writer) Shaun Cassidy as Joe Hardy, Parker Stevenson (future star of Baywatch and Isaac Asimov’s P.R.O.B.E.) as Frank Hardy and Pamela Sue-Martin (future Fallon on Dynasty) as Nancy Drew (she was replaced towards the end of the second season by Janet Louise Johnson).
The format of the Mysteries was a bit weird. In the first of the show’s three seasons, it alternated each week between the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. By the second season, only three episodes featured Nancy Drew by herself and the rest had her as a ‘guest star’ in the Hardy Boys’ episodes. And by the third season, Nancy Drew was gone altogether, and the show became The Hardy Boys Mysteries.
Whatever you think of the show itself – and you can still catch an episode or two on YouTube (look, here’s one with Melanie Griffiths) – the opening titles for the second two seasons were weird and creepy, as was the theme music. They also quite cleverly managed to add the members of the cast to the then-famous book covers. Over to you weird old title sequence:
Well, I mentioned it last week, but thanks to Mark at The British Comedy Guide we have word from Mark Evans himself about who was in the Bleak Expectations pilot and why Joanna Page wasn’t in the series itself:
"Yes, she played Pippa in the pilot. And was excellent. The reason she was not in the series itself was entirely down to availability… It would have been excellent to have had her in the series, but luckily we got the wonderful Susie Kane to play Pippa as she has done fabulously ever since.
The non-broadcast pilot was actually March 2006… then it was a whole year before the first series. Anthony Head wasn’t actually in that pilot – Tom Hollander played Mr Sourquill and Mr Gently Benevolent. Again, it was entirely an availability thing for him not doing the series; again we luckily got the fantastic Mr Head. I think both he and Mr Hollander are superb actors.
James Bachman was still Harry Biscuit, even in the pilot (doubling also with Servewell, Sir Philip’s butler). Thomas was played by Kim Wall; in the first series he became Mark Perry. Again, all availability. I’m a huge Kim Wall fan.
We also had Sophie Thompson as Agnes, Pip’s mother. (In the series played by Celia Imrie.) Once again it’s the whole availability thing. I think Sophie was in Eastenders at that point… but may be wrong. We were very lucky – every time we lost someone from the pilot cast, we found someone just as great to replace them in the series. Oh, and Poppy was played by Kellie Bright, who turned up recently in small parts in Horne and Corden and who is/was Kate Aldridge in The Archers. She, too, was unavailable for the series. Everyone got very, very successful and busy after the pilot. Coincidence? Or just great excuse making so they didn’t have to be in it?"
So there you have it. However, since it’s Today’s Joanna Page, have another picture of Joanna Page filming the third series of Gavin & Stacey:
