I used to watch this series on TV back in the day when I was a kid, sometime during the 1980s. And I do actually remember it as being a good series and entertaining, especially for a young boy. And thus, as I had the opportunity to revisit the series here in 2024, of course I did so without a second thought.
The storyline told over the four seasons is a well-written and entertaining one. It is a storyline of highway robbery and swashbuckling, mixed with a light sense of comedy and some interesting characters. I have to say that I was genuinely entertained throughout the course of the four seasons. One thing about the seasons did puzzle me though, why the series started out with 13 episodes in season one, then was drastically reduced to 7, 5 and 6 episodes in seasons 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Nevertheless, the episodes proved entertaining as the story progressed.
Richard O'Sullivan did a great job in portraying the highway man Dick Turpin, as did Michael Deeks as Swiftnick. There are some good performances and a couple of familiar faces on the cast list as well, with the likes of David Daker, Mary Crosby, Patrick Macnee and Donald Pleasance.
If you enjoy period dramas and swashbuckling, then "Dick Turpin" is definitely a series well-worth sitting down and watching. And for a series that ran from 1979 to 1982, I have to say that the show actually still holds up today, which is a great testimony to the production value and the effort put into creating the series back then.
There is a good amount of fencing in the series, and it was performed quite nicely on the screen. And also a fair amount of gunfights, so the series definitely has some action elements to it as well.
It was definitely worth the effort of sitting down and revisiting it here in 2024. However, it would have been nice if they had at least ensured a proper ending to the series, and not leave the audience hanging - no pun intended.
My rating of "Dick Turpin" lands on a well-deserved six out of ten stars.
