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Tales of the Unexpected : Season 5
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Air date: 25 Apr '82 - 18 episodesTales of the Unexpected is a British television series which aired between 1979 and 1988. Each episode told a story, often with sinister and wryly comedic undertones, with an unexpected twist ending. Early episodes were based on short stories by Roald Dahl collected in the books Tales of the Unexpected, Kiss Kiss and Someone Like You. The series was made by Anglia Television for ITV with interior scenes recorded at their Norwich studios whilst location filming mainly occurred across East Anglia. The theme music for the series was written by composer Ron Grainer. Although similar in theme and title, the show is not related to the American anthology television series, Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected, which ran for one season in 1977.
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List of Episodes (18)
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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1. Blue Marigold
25 Apr '82Marigold is a dream girl supermodel, but she is wrecking her career with drink and other excesses. Paul Foster, her dismayed lover, slowly sees how much greed for fame lurks behind Marigold's beautiful face. Sophie Trent is a more easy-going newcomer, but she sets off a jealous and dangerous reaction when her more dulcet tones are used to replace Marigold's voice on a television commercial.
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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2. The Eavesdropper
02 May '82Donald Henderson gives his wife, Moira, a unique watch, and then it goes missing, so Donald offers to replace it. As a result, Moira is in a store looking for a similar watch when she overhears a young woman telling a friend about her affair. It seems the stranger is meeting a married man - and she goes on to show her friend the beautiful watch he has given her. Unhappily, it looks just like Moira's. Moira puts two and two together and gets herself into a rage, and things soon get terribly out o
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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3. Operation Safecrack
09 May '82Retired safe-cracker Sam Morrissey is approached by Jack Harrison, an advertising man representing the Holdwell Safe Company, with a proposition. Jack wants Sam to try to break into a Holdwell safe on television - and, of course, he firmly believes it can't be done. However, inside the safe there will be twenty-five thousand dollars, and the money is Sam's to keep if he can crack the safe within three hours.Sam accepts the challenge - but he is not a man who likes to leave things to chance.
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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4. Run, Rabbit, Run
16 May '82Just after the Second World War, Robert Simpson was a young U.S. Army interpreter stationed in liberated Paris and living in the house of Hector Vareille, a hero of the French Resistance, and his downtrodden wife, Nathalie. Robert had no idea why the hectoring Hector never set foot outside his house. Now, ten years after the war, Robert is back in Paris to write a book about the Resistance, and he pays a call at his former digs. Only Nathalie is still there - and she has a story to tell of a ver
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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5. Stranger in Town
23 May '82A bearded, simple-minded stranger, wearing a top hat and a multi-colored coat, appears in a village performing conjuring tricks and is soon a favorite with the village children. They call him Sir Columbus, and he seems delightful and harmless. One day, Columbus talks his way into the office of a local business man, reveals himself as an unexpected visitor from the man's guilty past, and commits what seems to be the perfect murder. (This episode is noted for providing a young Jennifer Connelly
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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6. The Moles
30 May '82Edward Boyle and George Balsam are newcomers to crime, respectable businessmen on the brink of bankruptcy, who join forces with Meakins, a professional criminal, to rob a bank. They tunnel under the bank's vaults, burrowing through the earth like moles... but their plan comes unstuck.
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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7. Decoy
06 Jun '82Pretty policewoman Mary Bryan is out to get her man, in seductive, skin-tight silver pants. And it's all in the line of duty, as Mary is the bait to trap a suspected serial killer who has been murdering young women around the city. But things do not go according to plan.
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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8. Pattern of Guilt
13 Jun '82Pathologist Keith Briscoe has a problem. He has had enough of Elaine, his selfish and expensive second wife, and wants to re-marry Faye, his first wife... but Elaine has given Briscoe five years of her life and doesn't want to let him go. Then the pathologist finds himself working with a police team to catch a serial killer. The man they are after poses as a door-to-door salesman and kills women for their small change, and Briscoe realises how much he loves Faye when she agrees to act as a decoy
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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9. A Harmless Vanity
20 Jun '82Mary Hitchman's disbelief turns to curiosity when a friend tips her off that her husband George is having an affair with a pretty young secretary. Mary arranges a chance meeting with her rival at a beach party - and George does not foresee what is coming to him.
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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10. Death Can Add
27 Jun '82Alan Corwin audits the books of a City investment firm where Oliver Platt is a whizz kid. Platt has taken huge risks, and for a high price Corwin agrees to keep quiet. All is safely covered up - but Platt has not foreseen the well-meaning interference of Leila, his secretary and girlfriend...
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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11. Light Fingers
04 Jul '82Joan Stackpole wants a quiet life. Even talking to her husband Ralph is an ordeal she prefers to avoid. Meanwhile, Ralph has a big problem - someone is stealing the gloves from his glove factory, and the pilfering is throwing all his staff under suspicion, including Cotter, his designer. When Ralph can take no more, he hires a private eye, who forms an ingenious plan to catch the thief, and Ralph tells Joan about it over breakfast. Ralph swears he will get rid of the culprit - but then traces of
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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12. Death in the Morning
11 Jul '82Rich landowner Sir Ian Masterson marries, and Karen, his new wife, moves into his magnificent house in the country. Karen is befriended by Linda Larch, a neighbour. But Linda has her own agenda, and Karen also senses that there is an evil spirit which wants to see her off.
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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13. What Have you Been up to Lately?
18 Jul '82Richard Mellor and Fergus Locke are two failed actors whose names have never been in lights. They meet by chance for the first time in twenty-five years, remembering that Mellor wooed and won the girl they both loved more than a quarter of a century before. But now their marriages are as washed-up as their careers...
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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14. The Absence of Emily
25 Jul '82The rich, bossy Norma owns a big house and allows her sister Emily and lazy brother-in-law Bob to live at the lodge. One day, Emily vanishes without explanation, and Norma suspects Bob of killing her for a life insurance pay-out. Norma unwisely makes a noise about her suspicions - but while Bob has a sinister side to him, he is rather more subtle than that...
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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15. In the Bag
01 Aug '82An honest girl called Cara aims to recover her family jewellery (which has been consfiscated as a result of a lover's tiff) by stealing it from a hidden safe. She hires the ultra-cautious safebreaker Sam to do the job for her, and persuades him to take her along. Realizing that Cara will be a danger, he insists she must follow his orders. The plan is for them to dress as students and make their getaway by mingling with college crowds... But Sam has made the first big mistake in his long and succ
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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16. A Man with a Fortune
08 Aug '82John Smith is a rich but lonely Californian wine-grower visiting England in the hope of finding his long-lost family. In London, he meets two girls, Janet Murdoch and her room-mate Eva, and things start to go terribly wrong.
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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17. Who's Got the Lady?
15 Aug '82Parnell is an art dealer who plans to steal an important picture from his own London art gallery. During a ceremony to unveil The Patrician Lady (a masterpiece on temporary loan) gun shots and an explosion suggest a robbery. Afterwards, surprisingly, The Patrician Lady seems to be unharmed, but then Parnell finds the name 'Zarchetti' stamped on the back of the canvas, suggesting the picture is a fake. With the original under suspicion, Parnell plans that his artist girlfrend will then forge copi
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Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
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18. The Skeleton Key
22 Aug '82An arrogant young man called Max has to have an emergency operation just before he is due to go away on a holiday with his girlfriend, Emma - a holiday he hoped to turn into a honeymoon. Max panics and gets bad-tempered, and Emma tries to calm him down. Meanwhile, Andy, who is a radiologist at the hospital and a much more pleasant character than Max, is also keen on Emma. So she has to choose between them...
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