After a shorter break than previously, I’m back with more (probably over-critical) thoughts on two more Malory Tower episodes.

The Hamper

I think I’ve only just realised that all the episodes are The something. Which limits them a bit! This one sounds like another filler, but we’ll see if it develops the plots further.

What worked well in this episode

Miss Johnson continues to slowly and insidiously lock the school down. Incoming letters are now being read before they are passed on to the girls. She also shows that she really does have a prejudice against Darrell who gets all the blame for the mouse trick. (I actually think it’s fair, in this instance, that there is a punishment as they took advantage of the trick to leave class and go play lacrosse. I’m generally on the girls’ side when they play a trick that is funny while briefly disrupting class, but they took it rather far this time!) Mam’zelle and Matron’s reactions to the mouse were hilarious.

I was glad to see Matron back as, strangely, she was completely absent from the previous two episodes. I don’t know if she has other obligations, or if she was ill/in quarantine, but there was no on-screen explanation.

Alicia hiding her tricks in the cake was funny, especially as Matron almost ate them but was put off by the prunes. Her secret message was fun – very Five Find Outers.

It was also good to see Mavis again, and although it wasn’t good that she has laryngitis, it is good that they have continued that thread of plot.

In a rare moment from the books it was nice to see Darrell making the team, having thought she didn’t as she only checked the reserves.

What didn’t make sense

I was a little confused with the opening scene – Sally, gazing wistfully out of the window in her pyjamas, lamenting that recovering from mumps is no fun. Why is she back if she’s not recovered? She’s apparently not allowed to play lacrosse as she’s not well.

The mouse “trick” was terrible. I can see that being caught with a fake mouse would have gotten them into real trouble, but a grey sock on a string is a really pathetic mouse analogue – it’s massive for one, more rat-sized than mouse! As it was just a sock on a string Alicia could have just put a note in the cake telling them how to do it instead of sending one. Likewise, Darrell drawing attention to it in the dorm was silly. I doubt Miss Johnson would have noticed a balled-up sock sitting on a bedside table without her pulling it along on a string.

Matron takes the cake (very in-character) but leaves the girls with the rest of the hamper, all that food which they are not allowed to eat anywhere but the dining hall as per the new rules. Miss Johnson sees the cake crumbs in the dorm later and chastises them for leaving crumbs for mice, but makes no mention of the no food rule. Similarly, the girls are constantly talking in the corridors and often talking to Ron, which is also against the rules. Now I think about it – so is them wearing their lacrosse uniforms in the dorm!

The fake mouse suddenly made Mary-Lou worried that the mouse traps would catch a real mouse. An old building like Malory Towers would probably always have mouse traps set up as it would almost certainly have mice, given it has huge grounds and a load of girls leaving crumbs everywhere.

Darrell’s tantrum at the end was baffling. She, like Mary-Lou was worried about real mice being harmed. So it makes sense that she would sabotage the traps. But why on earth did she start wrecking the classroom to do so? Tipping out the contents of the bin and a drawer were unnecessary and a bizarre delayed temper tantrum. Darrell in the books often acted in the heat of the moment – she didn’t trash things after the fact, and certainly not for discovering she hadn’t made the reserve list.

I may be being overly critical again but how did Darrell make the team considering she didn’t exactly shine in the match at Malory Towers, and didn’t make the away match as she was in trouble? I’m glad they are showing that being a team player is important, not just scoring goals, but it seems unlikely.

What also makes no sense is having made it a complicated inter-school competition. If girls from 3 schools make up the team, who are they playing? How many fee-paying schools are there within a reasonable driving distance for games? Do they play against other mixed teams from the same three schools?

Other thoughts

I was left wondering if Darrell even be allowed to play any team lacrosse, seeing as she can’t keep out of trouble. (Which is at least in part her own fault, not just Miss Johnson’s vendetta!)

The final scene has Darrell making plans to use the skeleton key that Alicia sent. I wrote:

She’s going to get cauuught and in even bigger trouble!

Over-all this was a bit of a filler episode, as nothing major happened, but it did introduce the skeleton key which will be important later on I’m sure.

The Peaches

With a title like that this will surely be another filler episode.

What worked well in this episode

Jean’s little moment of turn-coating was well-done, as it turned out to be a deliberate plan to get Sally banned from the circus trip.

The whole peaches story might actually seem silly to children today – but tinned fruit was still rationed until May 1950, and series three is set in around 1949/50. From what I can gather peaches were rarer than some other tinned fruit and were a real treat. Saying that – while rationing has been mentioned once or twice it hasn’t seemed to have impacted their meals or midnight feasts much!

I loved their plan to swap the labels with tinned potatoes and managing to trick Miss Johnson with them. Thankfully she did blame Alicia and not Darrell! (Miss Johnson seems the type to decant tinned fruit into a pretty bowl before eating it, rather than eating it from a tin but perhaps this is a hint that she is not as posh as she seems?)

I liked the well-timed choreography of Mary-Lou and Irene getting out of bed in the san.

There are (possibly) little hints to the mystery here. Mary-Lou comments on the canvases being different to usual.

It was so good to see Matron and Mavis joining the girls’ side – at least for a short while – and hugely frustrating to see Miss Johnson sweet-talk her way out of trouble by pretending she had kept the conservatoire letters as a surprise. At least Mavis and Irene found out, though.

Lastly, it was good to see Gwen taking part in the midnight feast – the lure of peaches was obviously enough to sway her from the head of form duties!

What didn’t make sense

Miss Johnson’s TV seemed an extreme extravagance for the times (not that child viewers today might understand just how much!). There were only 350,000 TVs in the UK at that point – or in England, rather, as I’ve said before, Scotland and Wales didn’t get TV broadcasts until 1952! That (I think) works out at about one household in 20. A TV around that time would easily have cost seven weeks wages for an “industrial working” man. I assume this is to show that she’s not all that she seems, most teachers probably couldn’t afford a TV in 1950, even acting headmistresses – but again, would current viewers understand that?

The decision to keep four girls back for their plan was excessive, the more of them running about the more likely they are to be caught! In addition to that, the school wasn’t empty! Miss Johnson took six girls, leaving Matron and Mam’zelle Rougier (the only adults we know of) plus the cook(s), maids, presumably other teachers and all the other year groups. Covid has meant a really small cast but we are, I assume, supposed to believe that Malory Towers has more than fifteen people in it. Obviously it doesn’t make sense for us to see all the other girls going on their trips, but a two-second sentence like “The fourth-formers are going tomorrow,” would have created the illusion of other girls at least.

I have no idea why Miss Johnson kept the letters from the conservatoire, and Sally’s letter to Miss Grayling. Her plan was to prevent them from reaching their intended recipients, so why not destroy them?

Getting Mary-Lou and Irene out of the circus trip involved them sniffing onions to make them cough and sneeze. I don’t know about anyone else, but onions make my eyes run, never heard of them coughing sneezing and coughing!

Darrell and Sally are to paint pictures of Malory Towers as their punishment, but to free them up for searching Miss Johnson’s office Mary-Lou paints them instead. She doesn’t even try to paint less well – after Darrell and Sally protest that they aren’t good painters, nobody’s going to believe that those two painted those! (Spoiler, Miss Johnson rumbles them!)

Miss Johnson comes back from the circus early as she has so much work to do. Who is watching the girls then, and how are they getting back? For a woman who is so determined for them not to talk to the outside world letting them go to the circus in the first place seems risky – but to leave them there unchaperoned?

I can understand that they wanted to make the peaches more important than just something tasty the girls wanted, but the idea that a glass of peach syrup (tasty as it is) will cure laryngitis is ridiculous.

Other thoughts

I was convinced I had a nitpick about Irene looking through the keyhole and being able to see Darrell and Mavis behind the sofa, when the door to Miss Johnson’s office is on the other side of the room – but you can see another door to her room at the other side (which is never used). I can’t say I’ve ever noticed this before, but it has probably always been there.

I did go back to one or two episodes to see if I could see it, but the camera angle was wrong. I did notice, though, a bunch of paintings in her office – behind Sally when she first talks to Miss Johnson about the school rules…

This was just another filler episode, though. Yes, Darrell found out that Miss Johnson had hidden the letters, but as Miss Johnson managed to cover for herself we are no further forward. In addition to that Gwen has been criminally under-used! We’ve hardly seen her, apart from the odd line here and there.

I think it was JUNE the last time I watched and reviewed any episodes of this. I was getting quite into it and the mystery of what Mrs Johnson was up to, but then the school holidays started and I think I just forgot about it. I remembered it a few weeks ago but never seem to have had time to do it. So here I am on a Sunday while Brodie is at the swimming, sitting down to watch at least one episode in the hope I can get two watched and reviews posted in the next week or two!

 The Dance

This episode reminds me rather of The Dress from series one. A whole episode which has nothing at all to do with the original book, and even in terms of the TV plot seems like a filler story.

In short, some boys from Thackery (the losers from The Quiz?) are coming for a dance lesson, but Gwen goes completely overboard, referring to it as a Dance (you can practically hear the capital letter) and making the girls dress up and decorate the hall. In doing so she manages to not only drop Mary-Lou into trouble but completely betray her into the bargain.

The side plot (which is a bit baffling) involves Mary-Lou and Darrell finding a statue in the woods.

Let’s start with what was good.

Although not strictly necessary it was great to see the girls in their 1940s dresses rather than their school uniforms.

Gwen’s dress is an odd choice, much more sombre than the others, and the dark burgundy velvet looks almost black in some scenes making her look like she’s attending a funeral, not a dance.

There was also much amusement with Bill, whose “best clothes” turned out to be trousers and shirt, and did not live up to Gwen’s expectations.

The costume dress she tried on was definitely worse. I thought for a moment (as Sally “accidentally” rips the collar) that we were in for a Ron Weasley job of removing unwanted embellishments, but no it’s just discarded, and she wears the trousers. I enjoyed Mam’zelle Rougier calling her tres chic much to Gwen’s disgust.

I also thought it was very like Bill’s New Frock, the Anne Fine book, where Bill (a boy) wakes up one day as a girl and must wear a frilly pink dress to school. Not sure if this was a deliberate homage though!

Although I often dislike Gwen, I enjoy Danya Griver’s acting as nasty Gwen, like when she responds to Darrel’s statement about not spending her married life organising tea dances with:

I don’t think anyone was expecting YOU to be a good wife.

Her inspecting all the girls’ clothing is also very well acted.

Mary-Lou draws the statue for the others, which was a nice nod back to her revealed skills in series two. Always like it when the writers don’t completely forget about these things.

Darrell and Sebastion’s rivalry and verbal sparring was fun.

Things that made little or no sense

Bill wearing trousers was a perfect opportunity for her to take part in a boy’s role as there are eight girls to four boys, but instead they have her sit out of the paired dancing. Similarly Irene brought down gramophone records, but ends up sitting out and playing the piano. It all works out in the end as Darrell and Mary-Lou are off getting in trouble, but it’s not as if that was pre-planned… This seems to be only to allow for extra drama as she rushes in to save Gwen from a banana peel. Again, it doesn’t make sense as one of the boys drops a banana peel and instead of Bill just picking it up, she cuts in, dances with Sally, saying they must “save” Gwen. I don’t know how she knows it’s for Gwen, and why she doesn’t then dance with Gwen to tell her/guide her to avoid it or even better, just pick it up or kick it to the side which is what she ends up doing anyway.

As both Jonathan Creek and Mythbusters have proved, banana peels are actually not all that slippery, but I suppose the Thackery boys wouldn’t know that.

The (frankly over-ripe and disgusting looking) bananas were provided by the school, though it’s pointed out that most people haven’t seen a banana since the war. So why has the school got them, and why have they been left to go off if they’re such a rare treat? Applying verbal historical context only really works if the actions match.

I expected Ellen to present a bigger problem, as we’ve already seen her struggle with the uniform. But she has a dress, which admittedly Gwen does call not very a la mode, hinting that it is a bit out of date, but I thought it was one of the nicer ones there. Certainly nicer than Jean’s stripy one.

I actually thought the idea of a dance lesson with boys was quite bizarre under Miss Johnson’s rule as it seems a) an unnecessary distraction from their studies and b) an opportunity for the girls to tell someone about the harsh new rules etc. Given she’s so adamant that the girls don’t leave the building, talk to the staff or write uncensored letters (more on that in episode 8) it seems weird to allow half a dozen boys in.

Darrell’s fake illness was terrible, as was them having a half hour break from a lesson which had barely seemed to start.

I remain baffled by Miss Johnson. She refuses to believe that Darrell and Mary-Lou saw a statue. Yet, she has no reason to believe they’d make up such a wild story especially when they take her out to see it. Of course it’s gone when they get there, so I’m sure she organised it to be removed. So SHE knew it was there, and she knew that THEY knew it was there… obviously she can’t admit to it, but why not just act surprised and only accuse them of lying when there’s no statue to be found? (I’ve sort of spoiled the big reveal by looking at the show on IMDb, I was just checking the episode titles but they come with a one or two sentence descriptor which gives rather a lot away… but a lot of her behaviour remains inexplicable)

At the end of the episode she reveals that she knew Gwen had lied about Mary-Lou, but still manages to turn the blame onto Mary-Lou for being gullible, and suggests that Gwen inform her of any misbehaving. Obviously she wants Gwen on-side, but is she really that worried about the third formers finding out her secret?

What I disliked

Not a criticism (this time) but I was FURIOUS with Gwen, and also sick and tired of all the other girls constantly forgiving her for her atrocious behaviour.

In her desperation to make the hall attractive she sends Mary-Lou out for ivy, telling her that as Head of Form she is allowed to give permission for them to leave the school.

Mary-Lou being Mary-Lou believes her, but Miss Johnson then reminds Gwen that nobody is to leave the school. The ivy is a dead give away that someone did leave the school and so Gwen blurts out that it was all Mary-Lou’s idea, and she tried to stop her…

UGH. I can understand her not wanting to get into trouble or disappoint her father but to tell such a blatant lie, in front of Mary-Lou… The girls are disgusted with her but I know by the next episode(s) they’ll have forgiven her.

Yes, a statue in the woods is strange and interesting, but Darrell’s wild determination to go off and look at it – for fun – is infuriating. The girls have been in SO MUCH trouble already for leaving school – and Darrell in particular over the temper tantrum with the book etc – that this seems like an extremely flimsy reason for her to risk more trouble. Helping a friends, sure. Looking at a bust (which they’re all convinced is massively rare and old and valuable for no reason) no way.

She declares that maybe it’s a clue, but to what??

She also ruins any chance she had of defending Mary-Lou against Gwen’s lie by losing her temper and while not exactly shouting, raising her voice and being argumentative. She also manages to dob herself and Mary-Lou for leaving school themselves.

The Sisters

This is another episode which has a new plot designed only to allow Miss Johnson to become more draconian. Felicity comes to the school to sit the entry exam and Miss Johnson starts to read and censor the girls’ letters.

What worked well?

I appreciated that Alicia was referenced in both this episode and the previous one. Normally girls who leave are forgotten, but I know that she returns, so this is perhaps a little foreshadowing?

While the letter censoring made me mad, it was fairly well done, and illustrated what a tight grip Miss Johnson has on the school. The girls are writing home as a class assignment, and Miss Johnson tells Irene not to mention order marks and that they must keep all their letters upbeat. It’s all so sinister!

The viewer is (I assume, like me) willing the girls to get a message out somehow, and they very nearly do, until Miss Johnson decides to check Felicity’s pockets on the presence it’s to prevent exam cheating. She’s given up even justifying her actions/rules as being for the girls’ benefit as she simply reads the letter and confiscates it.

What Darrell wrote –

An awful old demon with pointless and stupid rules that are driving us all potty.

Was hilarious, though also pretty stupid as she wrote it in class and her only defence was I didn’t mean it like that.

Frustratingly the tension continues as while Felicity is able to tell her father about the new regime at Malory Towers, Miss Johnson is more than capable of smoothly reassuring him on the phone. (There were hints of you wait until [our] father hears about this, ala Draco Malfoy here, but Mr Rivers is no Lucius.)

I liked Ellen getting to show off her intelligence by writing a coded letter which looks like a terrible poem. Even better that it gets past Miss Johnson’s censoring. But it’s being sent to Alicia – what good can she do, I wonder?

Spring crashes heavily over our lovely island,
Sweet little irises keep erupting,
And proud roses illuminate softly our nook.

Can you crack the code where Gwen and Mrs Johnson couldn’t?

Things that made no sense

Since Miss Johnson set her new rules the girls have banned from leaving the building without a permission slip. While it’s never stated that the girls don’t have them in this episode, they are seen lounging around by the driveway, visiting the greenhouses, going swimming and HANGING AROUND THE STABLES. It’s as if that rule has conveniently been forgotten to allow various parts of this episode to work.

Miss Johnson tells them that they are not to show Felicity the pool or the stables, so they decided to do it anyway including planning a midnight feast – risking getting into huge trouble yet again for something utterly frivolous. Felicity has visited the school before and will see all these things when she joins next term.

Their “genius” plan is for Mary-Lou to swap clothes with Felicity, and do the exam prep for her while she goes off for fun. The school only seems to have about ten students so it’s glaringly obvious that Felicity is not one of them, even in an orange dress and Mary-Lou’s glasses.

Mary-Lou fools Gwen (from behind, with a hat on) but Gwen is on a self-absorbed ramble. And Mary-Lou is stupid enough to react to an unkind comment and give it away in the end.

Gwen, presumably forgiven after the previous episode, decides not to tell on Mary-Lou, but tries to get the others in trouble for going down to the pool with Felicity. She really doesn’t think it through – it’s like she just can’t help herself. As, how can Felicity be at the pool, if Gwen hadn’t reported her missing from the classroom before now?

Felicity and Mary-Lou swap clothes back in under ten seconds which seems impossible. It’s not one continuous camera shot, but we see Felicity go into the hall, and Darrell walk upstairs. Darrell only gets halfway when she hears Miss Johnson coming along, talking to Gwen. Miss Johnson and Gwen then walk into the hall and find Felicity and Mary-Lou in their own clothes. Yes, Mary-Lou has her dress on inside out, but Felicity has had time to put on her dress, button it up, then her cardigan and hat.