Hearts and Minds

When The Sweeney was at its brilliant best, the humour was a natural by-product of great writing and acting, but a few episodes like this one were played mainly for laughs and the results could be dire. 'Hearts And Minds' is really just a rather feeble vehicle for Morecambe & Wise (complete with fake audience laughter) who'd just joined ITV, and whoever wrote their lines for this one was certainly no Eddie Braben.

Many Sweeney fans agree that series 4 was the weakest, with too much emphasis on comedy, and the long absence of Frank Haskins; they even spoiled the classic opening & closing credits. Fortunately, John Thaw and Dennis Waterman could see the writing on the wall by now, and at least went out on a high with 'Jack Or Knave'.

The final season SWEENEY episode HEARTS AND MINDS has all the makings of jumping the shark, which means, when a show goes bad by crossing that bridge too far, and in this case it's special guest stars Morecambe and Wise...

A British comedy duo (unknown to Americans) who are very loosely connected to the initial theft of a hot new brand of medicine/pills, stolen from the house of a doctor in a modern marriage with future RETURN OF THE JEDI rebel leader Caroline Blakiston, and, later on, another George Lucas connection turns up in cameo detective Paul Freeman aka Belloq from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK...

Before our primary detectives John Thaw and Dennis Waterman not only meet the comedians but wind up doing a cringe-worthy act alongside them, there's yet another token uptight head honcho busting in on Regan's rebellious streak, played by the usually uptight and classy Edward Hardwicke...

Who with his own young partner adds up to four baffled cops tailing a group of edgy machine-gun toting criminals, making an otherwise filler episode actually not nearly as bad as it reads on paper.

The forth and final series of the sweeney was made at least 18 months after the previous one and while not too bad doesn't stand comparison to them. There are good guest stars, the plots are not bad and john thaw and Denis waterman are still the same but something was missing. Whether everyone new it was coming to an end I don't know but it all seems a bit predictable and tired.

And this episode is the worst of a poor lot. I loved Morecombe and wise and it must have seemed a good idea to invite them because of thaw and waterman's turn on their Xmas show but it just doesn't work. They are not actors and it is terrible to watch. I've just tried to watch it again and given up. Watch the earlier series to see just how great the sweeney was.

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise are the greatest comedy duo that Britain has ever produced and I'm at a slight loss to understand why . Certainly they were infinitely better than comedy double acts with two straight men such as Cannon and Ball and Little and Large who consciously tried to emulate the public affection held for Eric and Ernie by the British public . One perhaps can speculate that the good natured humour of the duo made for safe family entertainment in the 1970s , a decade that with hindsight was very much a cynical and violent era where television was concerned . THE SWEENEY personified this era perfectly where it became an instant classic

TV stars would clamber to get on the Morecambe And Wise Christmas specials and that included John Thaw and Dennis Waterman who appeared in the 1976 Christmas show . Returning the favour and highlighting that Morecambe and Wise had defected from the BBC to Thames TV this episode of THE SWEENEY has the duo appearing as themselves which makes for a very strange episode that doesn't really feel like an episode of the show . It's not meta-fictional send up but the episode starts with a brutal attempted burglary that sees a policeman seriously injured and a robber dead emulating the tough gritty aspect the show was famous for . The episode introduces a rather unconvincing plot involving international commie criminals trying to get their hands on a new super-drug and the episode climaxes on a tongue in cheek chase sequence with Eric and Ernie . Not to be taken seriously Hearts And Minds makes for one of the more memorable of the show while paradoxically isn't really a classic episode

Nice to see some familiar faces, but this is a dissapointing episode, probably the weekest of all