Dalziel and Pascoe (TV Series) Deadheads (1997) User Reviews

Death comes to Gardeners World.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 4 March 2016]

Patrick Aldermann is an unlucky man, over a thirty year period, six people have died who were close to him in one way or another, all seemingly of natural causes. Dick Elgood, his boss, asks Pascoe to look into it, meanwhile Patrick's wife Daphne has been getting friendly with Peter's wife Ellie, and she's been having an affair with Dick Elgood.

I'd say this is perhaps the best of the earlier Dalziel and Pascoe episodes, I love the story, it's wonderfully intriguing, clever, full of strands, but somehow it's not overly complex, and it's easy to follow. A slightly ambiguous ending which works well.

A young fresh faced Navin Chowdhry is great, but Jonathan Cullen steals the show as Patrick Alderman, he's brilliant. As a big fan of Blake's 7 I was overjoyed to see a rare performance from Sally Knyvette, sadly not in it for long, but she's great. Keith Barron is great too.

Deadheads

[de3206 · 17 October 2016]

This is one of my favorite episodes. Lots of twists and turns that seem to come together at various points, but then you get led down a different path.

Unlike most copper shows, this on does not gently lead you by the hand, and I love that at the end you're left to draw your own conclusions.

Were all the deaths a remarkable, seemingly impossible set of coincidences, or was there a guiding hand behind all of them?

Common sense tells you it HAS to be a single person at work, but it seems impossible.

Was it Patrick? Or his Mom? Or both? Or unrelated in any way. Or were some related, others not?

It leaves you with a range of possibilities, and never fills in the gaps. Some people might find it frustrating...."Well who DID do it, and how?"

I found it refreshing.

Rose tinted

[atrickyone · 10/10 · 4 October 2020]

Quite early in the show the rose-cultivating Patrick presents Sergeant Wield with a variety of rose called Improbability, which is the subtext of this episode. All those apparently improbable accidents that happen which fortuitously benefit Patrick. A series of flukes or something more sinister.? Brilliantly scripted and acted, this is one of D & P's best.

Deadheads

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 13 December 2023]

Adapted by Alan Plater. He keeps the mystery suitably ambiguous.

It opens with a flashback from 1973. Young Patrick Alderman is in the garden with his elderly aunt who shows him how to prune rose bushes. She suddenly dies when she thinks that Patrick might stab her.

In the present day, local tycoon Dick Elgood (Keith Barron) an old friend of Dalziel has a story to tell.

Patrick Alderman is an accountant in his company. People who have come into contact with him seem to die in bizarre accidents. The kind where someone's bad luck is his good fortune.

Patrick is moving up the corporate ladder with each new accidental death. Could it be murder in a Kind Hearts and Coronet way?

Pacoe investigates and uses his wife's car getting vandalised an excuse to get near to him.

However Pascoe finds out that other people have ulterior motives. Elgood is having an affair with Patrick's wife.

I liked how Patrick was set up as the villain. A slight weirdo with something to hide and more interested in roses.

Only the story shifts a little with other people coming into the frame. Yet there is always a question as to just how much Patrick might know of his wife's infidelity.