Dreamhouse

A lot of Minder fans are quite down on "Dreamhouse" due to its rambling, incoherent plot, but i've always had a soft spot for it and think that the programme makers should be commended for trying something different - Minder can't always be about pubs, punch ups and dodgy motors.

Terry McCann is hired to mind a washed up old rocker's house in the country for a few days, but what Tel thinks will be a nice, cushy holiday turns out to be anything but. The best bits are the scenes where Terry and Derek Farrow (Richard Griffiths) are having their frequent differences of opinion; these usually involve broken glass, flying or floating furniture, some very colourful dialogue and a wonderfully impromptu moment with a cork. In a separate plot Arthur is on the wrong end of a con for a change, and the sight of Benedict Cumberbatch's mum swallowing asparagus shoots whole makes him quite perturbed.

Dreamhouse should be enjoyed for what it is; a more experimental, letting the cameras roll and see what happens kind of vibe, and for the most part i think it comes off pretty well.

Terry watches over the dreamhouse mansion of a 1960s rock star Frankie Farrow. He is playing in Las Vegas so he needs a house minder.

However Terry has to make do with Frankie's troublesome brother who even pushes a piano into a swimming pool.

Meanwhile Terry discovers that Frankie is bankrupt, the house is rented and he is actually playing some working mens club up north.

This is a silly plotless episode with some over the top acting from Richard Griffiths and Roger Sloman.

Arthur seems to be flirting with a newly widowed lady whose two grown up sons seem to not to be too pleased.

There are a host of familiar faces but it fails to work as an overtly comic episode as the writing is not much cop. Well that's life.

This isn't a Minder episode. This is third-rate Harold Pinter being workshopped in the sticks.

The setup is McCann is hired to babysit a faded singing star's mansion. He's barely checked in when he discovers the phone is disconnected, the milk is sour, and there's no food in the fridge.

Then he finds the star's fat, drunken brother in the house.

What ensues is a bunch of blabbering in the drawing room. So, so boring. They just talk about things happening, but nothing actually happens.

The star's agent is so broadly over-played I consider him the worst character in the history of Minder.

The better part of the episode is Arthur Daley's interactions with a super-hot blonde widow and some fat, sloppy con man. But it wasn't enough to hold my interest.

It was hard to continue watching, to be honest.

Terry gets to look after the flash home of a ageing singer and finds his drunken brother squatting on the premises.

There is bit of a spat to begin with but gradually Terry starts to bond with the large squatter who essentially steals the whole episode.

There is a lot of laughs in this episode especially around the dream house story but we also have a sideline story involving Arthur and a amusement ride scam in which Arthur gets a loan off a wealthy window with designs on him.

The story is light hearted and played for laughs and offered a nice respite from the many gritty storylines throughout series 3.

Great supporting performance from the actor playing the rotund brother in fact so good he's another character that could and should have appeared again in some way like Scotch Harry , Des or Maurice Michaelson.

Now I have fond memories of 'Minder' as much as anybody, but after 20+ years it's amazing how much fudging the producers managed to get away with. The plot of this episode, such as it is, degenerates into complete nonsense, and as so often happened, some of the guest artists seemed to get scenery munchies.

Arthur's in danger of being seduced by the merry widow of an old mate - who's 'invested' 3 grand with him - and Terry's hired out to babysit the mansion of an unseen sixties pop sensation who still does Vegas, apparently. Throw in the neurotic brother (totally overplayed by an unstable-accented Richard Griffiths) of the said pop star whose presence is never really explained, and the popstar's agent played (ineptly) for laughs, and you have a sort of proto-Lovejoy-caper-sitcom episode, and a not very good one.

The strength of Minder was the characterisations by Cole and Waterman (and Malahide and Edwards), and this is one of the lighter episodes which allow them to clown around a bit. Good luck to them, Dennis Waterman even shares a bath with Emma Williams; but it's best not to expect any storyline - it coasts along till the end and then you realise that the production team had no more idea of what was going on than you will. Don't try to convince people that Minder was 'classic' by showing them this.