First broadcast 1988/ written by Andrew Davies/ starring
Peter Davison, Graham Crowden, David Troughton, Barbara Flynn, Joanna Kanska,
Michael J Shannon
After the first season ended on the slightly bizarre
merger between the University and a police college it was hard to see what
direction Andrew Davies was planning to go in. Thankfully he strips this
unlikely arrangement out of the way immediately instead having the campus fall
into the hands of ambitions Americans whose vice chancellor is named Jack
Daniels. It’s as apposite a moniker as last season’s quintessential Englishman
Ernest Hemingway. This time round the series is given an increased level of
surreal happenings, often straying deeper into the dreams of either Jock or Stephen
as they fathom the changes this new hierarchy brings. The Nuns prove to be as
symbolic as the Tower of London’s ravens, while the students, so often absent during
season one, have a greater presence and the series is the richer for it. There
is also an increased level of farce as times which helps underpin the grimness
elsewhere while relationships take on an altogether more intriguing dimension.
