Talkdown

Change of pace from season one featuring incomparable creep character actor par excellence Darren Nesbitt in a neat battle of wits with Harry Rule. The usually limiting 25 minute format of this show is somehow a little less noticeable in this tight little backwards-told tale, which hooks you with its cliffhanger in the first minute then proceeds in reverse to retrace everyone's path to that moment. While the series began with Rule, Bouchet and the Contessa protecting others, as time passed, the producers seemed to shift more and more to placing one or more of the team in jeopardy and the others having to come to the rescue. This particular iteration is one of the best of that particular motif; Nesbitt is possibly the first foe to actually out-maneuver Harry Rule, a welcome departure. For a series which had little choice to go with style over substance because of time considerations, this one offers a little more steak than sizzle, though it still would have been nice to see this outing expanded to an hour.