The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

[Nishlord]

11. "A problem with two Oriental guests who can't speak English is solved by Mrs. Cunningham, who speaks English at them - loudly and clearly."

10. "Benny slopes into Reception looking like he’s been living in a ditch, which he has. After catching him trying to have a siesta in the garden shed, David Hunter gives Benny a lecture on economics."

9. "Meg hears the fourth most incredible thing she’s ever heard in her life."

8. "Anthony pays a visit to Jill and laments the lack of sex and violence in New York."

7. "Shughie’s Stalinist behaviour earns shrugs of indifference from the catering staff. He retires to peel his potatoes."

6. "Mrs. Bailey’s plans to have an enjoyable suicide are almost thwarted by Jane."

5. "Benny regales Jane and Diane with tales of his life as a hobbledehoy. While Mr. Booth’s libido takes another thrashing, Shughie warns Helen of the dangers of communicable diseases. Diane gives Benny a lecture on the Welfare State."

4. "Two decades after being involved in the massacre of innocent civilians in Malaya whilst on National Service, David Hunter’s past catches up with him when he is stalked by the sole survivor."

3. "Shughie confesses to Diane that he’s a bit bereft in the pants department."

2. "Sandy breaks up a knife fight between two girls by charging them with his wheelchair."

and No.1...

"Benny and Grogan gang up on Mr. Rogers. Throat-slitting is pondered as an option and he flees the scene. They top their victory by stalking a goat that has just eaten some of Benny’s money."

[EIM]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

Hahaha. Where are these from? Number nine is my fourth favourite programme synopsis ever.

[My Name Is Ian]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

I will be able to confirm the veracity of these at some point, as I will shortly be embarking upon the journey of watching every episode of "Crossroads" that still exists up to 1979. They've released a 41 DVD box set of them. I'm kind of hoping that this won't be the only one that they release.

[EIM]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

I worry about you.

I mean, I don't. But if I did, I would.

[My Name Is Ian]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

It's 6260 minutes, apparently, which just about long enough to ruin Christmas.

[ian.64]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

41 DVD box-set? Really? That's absolutely astounding.

Jesus. To think about Crossroads is to throw yourself back into the mists of time to embrace the quintessential example of glorious tack and ineptitude, which makes Corrie's run right now look like Scorcese on a blinder. Only in Crossroads, could one character get a visit from a gangster. Not a shady, unshaven lowlife, but a fat bloke in a '30's get up - pinstripe suit, white fedora and a rose in the lapel, Edward G. Robinson style. If Edward G. Robinson was naff.

Realism wasn't Crossroads's stock-in-trade and boasted some of the most dreadful performances and characters (not to mention stories and situations) that British television has ever seen. And that's why it was popular, and why it gave Victoria Wood enough material to fill Fort Knox. I remember UK Gold screening a few episodes many years ago and it felt, even then, like snuggling into a long-lost pair of slippers. Rough, falling apart at the seams, but with an undeniably warm familiarity gained not through being compelled, but by seeing the same crap sets, atrocious acting and surreal situations that the 'storyliner' thought applicable to real life. It's where the jokes came from - a comedian, for many a long period, could get laughs from his audience by merely referring to Crossroads. It was the focal point for many a punchline. It was that bad - Harry Hill could've had a field day had TV Burp been shown back then.

It was brilliant because it was quite the opposite. You would think that the makers of it knew that what they were doing was astoundingly ridiculous and so tagged along, enjoying themselves in the process, and yet there was this feeling that they honestly believed that what they were doing was honest, heartfelt cliff-hanging drama.

So many things: the mopey insertion of the Crossroads theme at moments of supposedly poignant moments. The inexplicable Benny and 'Miss Diane'. The incomparable Noele Gordon, the original soap opera diva. Ronald Allen's Formica-smooth David Hunter (and Formica-standard performance). Tony Adams (no, not that Tony Adams, another one who played Adam Chance, a 100% soap-opera character name if ever there was one). The performance of David Hunter's jilted, loonbucket ex-wife, one of those 'once-you'll see-it-you'll-never-forget-it' turns that contains enough ham to feed a starving continent.

And Amy Turtle. Played by Ann George, she was the gossip-hungry cleaner at the Crossroads motel, a major character up until she left the show at one point. But, after a very long time, she returned. However, George wasn't the same actress she was when she came back and offered some of the most bizarre performances ever seen on a soap. Well, you couldn't call them performances, really. Overwhelmed by being back on the show and physically unable to put on anything like an acting turn, George could only, at some points, look directly at the camera, smile weakly and deliver her lines as if under the influence of some kind of sedative.

Crossroads. Bloody hell. The past is indeed another country, but Crossroads is an entire universe, populated by characters television would rarely see again and real life would never contemplate producing - which, bizarrely, was its strength. They resurrected it in the 90's, but it flopped resoundingly. It was too clean, too sterile. The original had a dumb, monumental power that couldn't be contained or replicated adequately.

200, I wish you all the best on your journey into a strange and ricketty past.

[Stumpy Pepys]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

200% -- if you're really going to watch 100 hours of Crossroads, I think you owe it to the world to write it up. There's at least a Guardian feature in it.

[My Name Is Ian]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

I doubt if I'll be capable of it afterwards. Maybe I should have a go at it and put it on here.

[Nishlord]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

Yes, EIM, they're all taken from the box set, which I too am picking at as some kind of winter penance. They're all the episodes that weren't wiped. Currently at 1973, which was the time that, in ATVLand at least, the end of an episode meant bedtime for kiddies such as I. They'd run a quick cartoon, and tell the youth to go to bed. Imagine such a thing nowadays.

[evilC]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

200% -- if you're really going to watch 100 hours of Crossroads, I think you owe it to the world to write it up. There's at least a Guardian feature in it.

I'm not sure it's humanly possible to watch that much shit and retain one's sanity. You'll probably fall into some kind of Lovecraftian dementia. I think you should actually check yourself into an asylum before you embark on this odyssey of televisual ordure.

Two Hundred Percent will later turn up in a travelling freakshow, a la The Elephant Man: "...And now, ladies and gentlemen, witness the 'orrible vacuosity of the Cathode-Ray Zombie! Yes, that's right - the only living man to have watched the entire 41-DVD box set of Crossroads and survive! Don't worry, ladies and gennelmen - you can throw what you like at him. He won't notice. He barely knows you're there, in fact. Look - I'll start you off"

[ian.64]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

I'm not sure it's humanly possible to watch that much shit and retain one's sanity. You'll probably fall into some kind of Lovecraftian dementia. I think you should actually check yourself into an asylum before you embark on this odyssey of televisual ordure.

On the contrary, he should keep us posted on his progress, both from a critical and psychological point of view. Only through keeping touch with us through this ordeal - sorry - journey of discovery will his equilibrium and sanity be maintained. We'll be his emotional and moral back-up should he require it.

And it'll be a good laugh to boot.

[evilC]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

ian.64 wrote:

...Only through keeping touch with us through this ordeal - sorry - journey of discovery will his equilibrium and sanity be maintained. We'll be his emotional and moral back-up should he require it.

And it'll be a good laugh to boot.

Is there a word for a cross between schadenfreude and voyeurism?

[ian.64]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

The solitary viewing of just one vintage Crossroads episode goes beyond those mere values. If anything, 200 will recieve his equal due of admiration and pity.

Then again, he may piss himself laughing too much to notice anything.

[Nishlord]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

You've got some serious catching-up to do, 200; I'm at Xmas 1975, just after the glorious phasing-in of the impervious Shughie McFee. Meg is reading at the Xmas service in a whoppingly huge fur hat and coat combo, looking like Elton John's Nana.

[My Name Is Ian]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

I watched the first three or four last night.

First impressions:

1. How similar it was in 1966 to 1982, which is when I can just about remember it from.

2. Sue Nicholls. As if she didn't confuse me enough by being Joan in Reggie Perrin and then Alf Roberts' wife, she then turns up ten years earlier as someone that may or may not be some sort of flighty sex-pot. Nice to see a familiar face, mind.

I can't wait for it to go colour, though.

[Nefertiti2]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

This really needs live blogging by the Mighty Kubelgog.

[Nishlord]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

Wait until the mid-70s, 200. Not only is Finger out of Nuts In May in there, but someone from another dimension entirely, playing exactly the same character.

[Gangster Octopus]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

ian.64 wrote:

Realism wasn't Crossroads's stock-in-trade and boasted some of the most dreadful performances and characters (not to mention stories and situations) that British television has ever seen. And that's why it was popular, and why it gave Victoria Wood enough material to fill Fort Knox. I remember UK Gold screening a few episodes many years ago and it felt, even then, like snuggling into a long-lost pair of slippers. Rough, falling apart at the seams, but with an undeniably warm familiarity gained not through being compelled, but by seeing the same crap sets, atrocious acting and surreal situations that the 'storyliner' thought applicable to real life. It's where the jokes came from - a comedian, for many a long period, could get laughs from his audience by merely referring to Crossroads. It was the focal point for many a punchline. It was that bad - Harry Hill could've had a field day had TV Burp been shown back then.

It was brilliant because it was quite the opposite. You would think that the makers of it knew that what they were doing was astoundingly ridiculous and so tagged along, enjoying themselves in the process, and yet there was this feeling that they honestly believed that what they were doing was honest, heartfelt cliff-hanging drama.

Quite possibly the best summation of Crossroads I've ever seen.

[Gerontophile]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

and of course 'Shughie McFee' was in The Great Escape...

[Gangster Octopus]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

And 633 Squadron.

[Nishlord]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

Two more observations while I continue to feed my inner Nana;

1. Everyone drinks for the slightest reason. They make the cast of Mad Men look like lightweights. Although the only alcohol available in mid-70s Birmingham appears to be sherry, whisky, halves of bitter, home brew, and the occasional champagne.

2. Every woman appears to want some off Benny. The writers should have called him 'Fanny', because that's what gets thrown at him. Relentlessly.

[George]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

Have a sample of Amy Turtle's brief return to the motel during the shows fag-end days. My soundcards had it so you'll have to tell me how awful it is.

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

I live quite close to Tanworth-in-Arden, which I must visit for two reasons:

1) It's where Nick Drake is buried.
2) It was King's Oak when ATV finally got given an outside broadcast unit.

[Sean of the Shed]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

twohundredpercent wrote:

2. Sue Nicholls. As if she didn't confuse me enough by being Joan in Reggie Perrin and then Alf Roberts' wife, she then turns up ten years earlier as someone that may or may not be some sort of flighty sex-pot. Nice to see a familiar face, mind.

Of course, Sue Nicholls will always be Miss Popov from Rentaghost to those of us with no interest in Soaps.

[Wyatt Earp]

The Top 11 Greatest Crossroads Plot Synopsies

Nishlord wrote:

4. "Two decades after being involved in the massacre of innocent civilians in Malaya whilst on National Service, David Hunter’s past catches up with him when he is stalked by the sole survivor."

I'm pretty sure I actually remember that one.