Last time Stef came to visit me we subjected ourselves to the first episode of the new Famous Five series. That was over a year ago and neither of us had watched any more – until Stef came back up for another visit and we watched episode 2 together. I had thought, that, seeing as Jemima Rooper is in an episode maybe we could watch another. She is in episode 4 however, and neither of us felt like watching episode 3 just to get to episode 4 and Jemima Rooper, no matter how much we love her. (Watching them out of order was out of question, obviously.)

So just like last time I have recorded as much as I could of all the things we shouted at the TV while watching.

Here be many spoilers!

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[Opening credits]

Fiona: Well, they have the same horrendous titles

Stef: It hurts my eyes

Fiona: Ed Speelers… he’s in Outlander.

Stef: I recognise the name

Stef: So slightly based on Five Go Off to Camp?

Fiona: Very very loosely perhaps

[At Kirrin Cottage. A man is creeping through the house in the dark.]

Stef: I swear that’s the same cottage Jennifer Armstrong is kidnapped from in Five Run Away Together. It’s in the west country? [I’m yet to try to verify this]

Fiona: Why haunted?

Stef: Cause it’s Peril on the Night Train

Fiona: Is that Anne?

Stef: Is she going to be as insufferable as before?

Stef: Why is she in bed in her dressing gown?

Fiona: Good question.

Fiona: Also why has she got a red lamp. Why are her brothers sleeping in her room?

Together: It’s a dream??

[Spoilers, it was a dream. Or rather, a nightmare.]

Fiona: They’re trying to make it horror-filmy?

Stef: Camp is the scariest one.

Fiona: The spooook train.

Stef [In a moderately bad Scottish accent]: I’m a ninny and an eejit.

[Daytime and a man, revealed to be Mr Roland, the tutor, has arrived at Kirrin Cottage]

Stef [Back to her normal accent]: It’s Mr Roland, so it’s Five Go Adventuring Again.

Stef: Mr Roland’s supposed to be staying in the house.

Fiona: At least [him staying elsewhere] corrects the spare bedroom/no spare bedroom mistake.

Fiona: But how does a train come into… Mr Roland?

Stef: I like that they’ve given a reason for the parents to be away.

Fiona: I don’t think they needed a reason.

Stef: As an adult watching it does feel like it fills a gap.

Fiona: I suppose kids to day would better understand parents working away vs going on holiday.

Stef: It should be in the CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.

Fiona: Have we ever seen an adaptation in snow? Well, the graphic novel but that’s AUTUMN and freak snow.

Stef: Snow is not that hard to CGI in, in 2025.

Stef: Why always the Germans, like the 70s version.

Stef: Half the 90s series was funded by Germany.

Fiona [who did not know that fact]: Were they trying to make sure the bad guys weren’t all German?

Stef: One of the boys here, I think, is actually German.

Stef: [Ed Speelers] is quite Mr Roland-y.

Fiona: Mmm he’s quite good.

Stef: The other three are supposed to like Mr Roland, but they’re falling asleep.

Fiona: We’re dumped right in – there’s no build up to why he’s so strict and confiscating the ruler.

Stef: Attention span?

Stef: Incidentally Five are listed under second name of Barnard

Stef: George was never that openly hostile.

Fiona: How is tea ready, who made tea? [I’ll explain that nitpick in a proper review later.]

[Uncle Quentin is demonstrating some kind of computing device he’s invented that’s supposed to answer any question.]

Fiona: So… it’s AI?

Fiona: There were not enough inputs for that kind of question.

Stef: Julian is bowing down, But Anne still looks older than Dick.

Fiona: And George is still wearing a ridiculously pretty blouse.

Stef: It’s too feminine. I don’t mind the headband, though.

Fiona: I’m not a fan.

Fiona: Oh no Anne’s still-

Stef: A brat.

[Anne thinks the house is haunted]

Together: Groan.

Stef: I still swear it’s the same cottage.

Fiona: Is it aspector, a ghoul – or Mr Roland?

Fiona: Why have they built a blanket fort?

Stef: I’m still trying to reconcile a train.

[The Five are up late, waiting and watching, talking about their ‘ghost’ which as far as we can tell is only in Anne’s dream.]

Fiona: She didn’t see anything – she was asleep in bed!

[George asks Timmy is anyone’s there and they go down to look]

Fiona: Mr Roland.

Stef: This is probably where Timmy gets told off for attacking Mr Roland. Why isn’t Julian going first? And why have they all got different coloured torches?

Fiona: To make it visually interesting.

Stef: So it’s not Mr Roland?

Fiona: Mr Roland in a bad disguise?

Fiona: Or one of the artists or not artists.

Stef: What’s going on with that window?

Fiona: It’s in spooky black and white.

Stef: And the clock.

Stef: What were they doing in the tutoring room?

[Next day and back to lessons]

Stef: Out of all of them Anne would be the last to fall asleep during a lesson.

Stef: She’s too sarky.

Fiona: It’s way too early for that kind of suspicion [Of Mr Roland].

Stef: Oh look Timmy’s basket’s been moved.

Fiona: The clock is the secret passage.

Stef: I feel like we’ve been dropped right in the middle of things.

Fiona: I don’t know what’s worse – absent parents or parents in the house and not paying attention.

Stef: I still don’t see how a train fits in.

Fiona: Is this [discovering the secret of the clock] to replace them finding of the via occulta note at the farm?

Fiona: I mean, god knows they couldn’t have two locations.

Stef: But if someone’s already opened the clock wouldn’t they have found it already?

Stef: Why has Dick suddenly got his knapsack with him?

Fiona: Dick just loves that bag.

Stef: Why isn’t Julian insisting on going first?

Fiona: Why is Julian going LAST?

Stef: No! Don’t close it, you…. don’t you think they might notice when the kids don’t turn up?

Fiona: What if it locks behind them?

Fiona: Who would build this?

Stef: SMUGGLERS.

Fiona: So it comes out in a random shed?

Fiona: I suppose now we have a second location.

[The farm is a boarding house run by Mrs Sassoon.]

Fiona: Mrs Sassoon – why not the Kirrins’ farm?

Stef: The Sanders.

[The Five peer in the windows of the boarding house]

Fiona: And  of course nobody notices them all pressed against the window.

Fiona: Look at all those suspects.

Fiona: Why are they so useless? Remember the railing?

Stef: Don’t have that conversation outside the window of the boarding house!

[The Five charge in to start making wild accusations]

Stef: I might have an aneurism.

Stef: Oh god.

Fiona: Talk about tipping your hand.

Fiona: Oooh she’s foreign. And there are panelled walls.

[Mrs Sassoon is both welcoming and snippy with the children.]

Fiona: Do you like these children or not?

Fiona: I wouldn’t say that Quentin’s machine is worth stealing.

Stef: Julian, you’re not much help are you?

Stef: It’s an early enigma machine.

[The Five plan a trap for Mr Roland]

Fiona: They’re going to tar and feather him?

Stef: Uncle Quentin is going to get covered in treacle and feathers.

[The Five are all asleep where they sit.]

Stef: That’s why you take it in turns to watch.

Fiona: They weren’t even watching, just sitting there.

Stef: I’m still not seeing a train.

Fiona: Is Mr Roland going to steal and run, and they have to chase him on a train for added drama?

Stef: Not the marbles!

Fiona: Not the bad hiding!

Stef: It’s Uncle Quentin… No it’s not – it IS Mr Roland.

Fiona: What is his legitimate excuse here? [Bearing in mind he isn’t staying at Kirrin Cottage].

Stef: This is not Famous Five.

Fiona: Caught him feather handed…

Fiona: Mr Roland’s going to pretend he was following the burglar.

Stef: And Timmy didn’t bark.

Stef: They’re in it together.

Fiona: Like Roland and the artists.

Stef: Why is Julian at the back?

[Someone else steals the invention and escapes via the clock passage. Mr Roland and the children take chase, and Mr Roland who reveals himself to be Agent Keats]

Stef: It’s our Julian. How did they steal our idea?? [For context, we have written grown-up Julian as an SIS agent and he sometimes uses the alias Keats.]

Fiona [The voice of reason]: Yeah somehow I don’t think they’ve read our unpublished fan fiction. It’s like Mr King from The Barney Mysteries, though.

Stef: Timmy should have got him by now.

Fiona: George knows a shortcut… but how does she know where he’s going?

Fiona: Blyton never would have had them tearing around outside in their pjs.

Stef: Oh there is three of them. [Bad guys].

Fiona: We’re 30 mins in and going wildly off piste, so that was the only bit that’s going to resemble the book.

Stef: We’re assuming Mr Roland’s telling the truth, and not just a 2nd party also after the thing.

Fiona: I still don’t know why you’d want to steal something that’s not working. [Warning, I got a total bee in my bonnet about the useless invention until Stef eventually reminded me that Quentin did get it to work.]

Stef: The potential?

Fiona: But why not wait until it works?

Fiona: How did they even know about it – does Quentin talk randomly to people about his inventions?

Stef: Guess what I’m building!

[Mr Roland convinces Uncle Quentin that he needs to be moved to safety along with his invention, and Fanny insists the whole family comes along for their safety.]

Stef: Unless the dads are still brothers here, it could have come that way.

Fiona: Mr Roland got a lot of those feathers off.

Fiona: That machine’s his life’s work??

Fiona: It’s basically a calculator, not a decoding machine. And it doesn’t even work!

[The family arrive at the train station and Dick is loudly talking about his secret agent father.

Stef: You don’t just go about saying that!

[An American man greets Quentin and claims to know him, but Quentin doesn’t remember meeting him.]

Fiona: Ooh that’s suspicious. Is it supposed to be Elbur Wright?

Stef: That woman under the umbrella is she from Sassoon’s?.

Fiona: Sassoon’s in on it, too?

Fiona: It doesn’t even WORK.

Fiona: And here was me thinking they’d have to sneak onto the train.

Fiona: They’re not all going to fit in a sleeping cabin.

Stef: There’s got to be more than Keats with them.

Fiona: Boys and girls sharing a cabin?

[We see various other passengers and staff on the train]

Fiona: So which of these three are supposed to be suss?

[The waiter has a bandaged arm]

Fiona: The hand that Mr Roland shot!

Stef: They were going to celebrate him fixing the machine.

Fiona: Oh yes, I forgot.

Fiona [unwilling to give up just yet]: But how exhaustive could his testing have been? Do we know it doesn’t still blow up after ten calculations? Twenty?

[Julian advocates for having a meal in their cabin as Keats told them to stay put]

Fiona: And you always do that you’re told Julian, as you’re such a good little boy.

Stef: Since when did Anne get  so bossy?

[Two men in the dining car are talking about a machine.]

Stef: Cause that’s not dodgy at all.

Fiona: They’re talking about a combine harvester or something.

Fiona: Ok it’s a typewriter.

Fiona: It was too obvious anyway.

Fiona: There’s going to be a swap isn’t there? [Much easier to do with a typewriter than a combine harvester…]

Stef: The whole train is full of agents.

Fiona: The train thing is done to death at this point, surely? Murder On the Orient Express, First Class Murder by Robin Stevens, Everyone On This Train Is a Suspect… [OK what I actually called it was All The Passengers Are Killers, but my point still stands.]

Stef: The Mystery of the Blue Train is a Poirot one.

Fiona: Oh, there’s that Murder She Wrote TV movie set on a train too.

Fiona: They’re throwing lots of random people at us now.

[George sits with a woman in the dining car as she says she’ll keep an eye on Timmy so that he doesn’t have to go back to their cabin.]

Fiona: Her accent is all over the shop.

Stef: She’s going to make friends with George and it’s all going to be wrong.

Fiona: George wouldn’t… well… yes if anyone likes Timmy she’ll gush all over them.

[We derail briefly to discuss how the MT series holds up against this one and MT wins hands down.]

Stef: Julian was slightly better in the first one. And George. Dick so far is on par. Anne has one a 180.

Fiona: No she’s exactly the same.

Stef: Have I blanked that out?

Fiona: The woman with George, she looks familiar. [I check IMDB. I haven’t seen her in anything though.]

Fiona: £87 in those days that’s a lot.

[Dick announces that he wants to be a secret agent like my father]

Stef: Why would you say that have you no discretion?

Fiona: That’s not the same American from the station, is it? – he didn’t get on the train.

Stef: It is him, he’s just not wearing his hat.

Stef: They’re so lax with the info they’re giving out – that’s what’s stressing me out

[Anne comments on the suspicious waiter (the one with the injured hand) and Julian blankly asks what waiter?]

Stef: JULIAN!!!

Fiona: and Dick… you’ve got eyes both of you!

[The Five decide to talk about their suspicions.]

Stef: In the middle of a busy dining cart are you guys stupid??

[The Five go to Uncle Quentin’s cabin and find he and Fanny deeply asleep.]

Stef: Drugged!

Fiona: Not dead though.

[There’s a fight and Agent Keats throws the waiter out of the window, remarking can’t get the staff these days.]

Sef: That’s a bit over the top.

Fiona: No ticket would have been a better excuse. [See Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]

Stef: Surely you’d want to interrogate him?

Fiona: Yes, suspicious – he wanted the evidence of the guy gone.

Stef: So he’s not a good guy.

Fiona: No I don’t think he is.

[Keats picks up glass]

Stef: Don’t drink that, it might have the barbiturates in it!

Fiona: But not if he put them in the drinks.

Fiona: There’s an episode of Murder She Wrote called Who Threw The Barbiturates in Mrs Fletcher’s Chowder. [Actually it was Barbitals but close enough as barbital is a barbiturate.]

[Keats collapses.]

Fiona: Ok it was drugged and very quick acting.

Stef: He’s gone now.

Fiona: Bye bye.

[The Five discover the machine is gone.]

Stef: It’s probably still on the train.

Fiona: Julian, that’s the ****est idea I’ve ever heard. Wait for a grown up to wake up!!

[They find a note given to the  waiter by the American, reading I insist you meet me tonight… If you don’t come, you’ll regret it.]

Fiona: He didn’t give him a chance to come or not come so it can’t be him. It’s too obvious. The person who makes a big song and dance about wanting it is never the one to steal it.

Stef: Why is it all so dark?

Fiona: Comic-coloured torches again.

[The Five find the American smoking a cigar in his cabin, with a length of ash still in place.]

Stef: We don’t need a lesson on smoking, this is for children.

Fiona: Well, that’s a long winded way to prove he’s been in there the whole time.

[A couple get off the train carrying a case the size and shape of the missing machine. Sabrina, the woman from the dining car helps the Five stop them, with a gun.]

Fiona: Is she on our side?

Stef: I’m still not convinced.

Fiona: Is she just stopping it being stolen so she can steal it?

Fiona: Glenfinnan Viaduct is NOT on the way to Aberdeen or Inverness. And it’s nowhere near Gleneagles either. [Warning for second bee in the bonnet – Scottish geography].

Fiona: Also, nobody has looked in the case. Is it just the typewriter?

[With Sabrina they discuss how the couple only just heard about the machine and so couldn’t have been working with the waiter from the start.]

Fiona: He was just taking advantage.

Fiona: The tea pouring is a clue?

[Sabrina makes the same remark about biscuits as Mrs Sassoon did earlier.]

Fiona: I’d like to tell you that I knew why she was familiar, but I didn’t get that at all.

Fiona: It’s not in there… but there’s more than one person after it. More than her and the waiter.

Stef: Why is George wearing converse?

Fiona: Cause she was wearing them in the first episode.

Stef: Oh yeah, we’ve had this conversation before.

[Sabrina/Mrs Sassoon, cover blown, follows them, and the case, through the train.]

Stef: Where’s Timmy by the way?

Fiona: That’s right, just walk through a carriage with a gun. And in your dressing gown.

Fiona [sarcastic]: They’re so well hidden again.

Stef: They should have split up.

[Timmy runs up to Sabrina]

Fiona: Timmy YOU TRAITOR.

Fiona: Please tell me they switched the case.

[Sabrina decouples the carriage the Five are in]

Stef: Can you do that at speed?

Fiona: I wouldn’t recommend it.

Fiona: But they can hold up the case and laugh? If they were clever and switched the machine to a different case.

Stef: Everyone’s going to be really pissed when they realise their luggage is missing.

Fiona: Why did they get out of the carriage? [Realising that Sabrina was on the main part of the train and left the Five in the luggage carriage behind]. Oh, I thought it was the other way around for some reason.

[Anne asks how far now.]

Fiona: You’ve no idea where you are, or where you’re going to!!!

Fiona: Listen to you and your zero ideas, Julian.

[The Five are collected by a couple of army personnel in a jeep who say they are from the Cairngorms Garrison.]

Fiona: You’re not staying at the Cairngorms Garrison if the train hasn’t even reached Edinburgh yet.

[We break off to look at Google Maps and discuss just what route this train was supposed to have taken.]

Stef: Where’s Timmy? Again.

[Stef looks up the Cairngorms Garrison filming location.]

Stef: They’re using Wales as Scotland.

[Stef nearly dies of laughter.]

Fiona: Well, we all know that Wales looks more like Scotland than Scotland does.

Stef: There must be places in Scotland…

Stef: Why are they in a  tent when there’s a house?

[The Five are fed and and Anne say things are always better with plum pudding.]

Fiona: Plum pudding can’t fix this episode.

Stef: And there are much better things than plum pudding.

[Julian and George have a heart-to-heart and make up after earlier disagreements about Sabrina].

Stef: A set up for a romance??

Fiona: Surely not!

[The Five borrow a radio.]

Fiona: Of course Julian just knows how one of those works.

[Dick says Loch Ness as Lock Ness. Warning, third bee in my bonnet.]

Fiona: Cccchhh.

Stef: He’s translating morse code so fast. But he may have come in part way through the message?

[Someone says Lock Ness again.]

Fiona: Cccchhhhhh.

[Someone says Loch Ness.]

Fiona: He can say it!

Stef: I think he’s actually Scottish. But why is he obeying a small girl?

[Someone says Lock Ness.]

Fiona [nearly choking self]: CCCHHHH!!!

[Stef shows off that she can say loch correctly, presumably in case I lose it and try to harm her.]

[The Five travel to LOCH Ness and stop in at the local pub, where the landlady forces them to buy knitwear in exchange for information.]

Fiona: A nice way to carry on the cheapskate Scots stereotype.

Fiona: Oh it’s them? [The two blokes who had the typewriter on the train]. The typewriter – you think they’d have opened it again by now.

Stef: Julian’s got a couple of pounds in his pocket? If you were lucky he’d have a ten bob note.

Fiona: Especially after after buying all those scarves.

[Cut to the loch where something suspicious is rising from the water.]

Fiona: It’s a ****ing submarine – not Nessie.

Fiona: Could you even get a submarine into Loch Ness??

[We derail to discuss this. I’m of the opinion that no, you could not. You could sail to Loch Ness as it is connected via rivers and canals to the sea, but it’s not deep enough all the way to submerge a U-boat.)

Stef: Why did [Sabrina] leave [the machine] in her room?

Fiona: They’re clearly dressed as German military.

Stef: You just wouldn’t raise a German U-boat in Loch Ness in the daytime.

Fiona: There’s no war yet but that would definitely raise eyebrows. We’re in for a farcical Monty Python / Michael Palin ‘everyone’s in one it and waving guns about’ scene. [I was thinking mostly of the Ripping Yarns episode Whinfrey’s Last Case]

Fiona: Reall, toasting the kaiser in front of everyone?

Fiona: They’ve lost the invention three times now!

Stef: He’s got an umbrella!

Fiona: And he’s not afraid to use it!

Fiona: Well. everyone IS waving guns about now.

Fiona: Ugh, moral arguments and lessons, yawn.

Stef: What does George know?

[Sabrina goes off with the device in the case. George then reveals that the device is actually in the typewriter case.]

Fiona: Finally a switch!!

[The U-boat takes off, without the invention.]

Fiona: That was shocking bit of CGI. So at what point did they switch it? I can see now that they deliberately got caught.

After it ends we discuss what a waste of Ed Speelers it was. He was in the first half hour, a it in the middle and then didn’t even turn up at the end. I think we were too disgusted to say anything else!