Wilde Alliance - Season 1

First aired: 1/17/1978 13 episodes

Episodes

1. Question Of Research

Aired: 1/17/1978

The episode opens with Amy complaining to Rupert that she has too much to do [looking after their flat and typing up Rupert's notes on top of her job as an artist] and she's going on strike. Later, while Amy is talking to Rupert's literary agent, a fake telephone engineer calls and plants bugs in their flat. The next day, a girl calls at the flat to return Rupert's wallet after his pocket has been picked by her colleague, and they offer her a live-in au-pair job. She moves in and is caught by Amy late at night looking through Rupert's desk - for one of his novels to read, she claims. The next day, Amy discovers one of the bugs and the couple speculate that they are the victims of mistaken identity? After all, there is a strange man living in the flat below who looks, for all the world, like a white slave trader?

2. Flower Power

Aired: 1/24/1978

The episode opens with Rupert giving Amy her wedding ring back, it having slipped from her finger yet again - and it prompts the couple to ponder the things they've given up since marrying each other [Amy doesn't go dancing anymore as Rupert has two left feet; Rupert doesn't go to concerts anymore as Amy has cloth ears]. Amy receives 'practically a royal command' drinks invitation from a local society matron who has also invited a local radio host [a former beau of Amy's who used to take her dancing] and the local librarian who is also a nature lover. The society matron asks them to form a committee to build a pleasure lake for local people. Later, Amy discovers it's all a ploy to enable the society matron's industrialist brother to build a factory and reservoir in a beautiful Yorkshire dale that has romantic & artistic associations for Amy.

3. Too Much Too Often

Aired: 1/31/1978

The episode opens with Helen tidying the mess left by her husband, David, who is crashed out on the sofa after drinking 'too much, too often'. Helen invites friends Rupert and Amy to their country house for the weekend where they meet Clare, David's quiet secretary and Leo, his business partner. David behaves badly, especially with his wife. Later, he gives Amy a family history that he's written and asks for her comments. Next day, while clay pigeon shooting, David behaves madly, aiming his gun at Rupert, firing over his head, then driving off. Leo turns up later looking for David who has not come home. Leo has a black eye from where David hit him after Leo accused him of stealing company money. Later that evening, Rupert and Amy read David's family history. The next morning David's car is found in a pub car park near the river.

4. Things That Go Bump

Aired: 2/7/1978

Christopher, Rupert's literary agent and friend, buys a long-empty, old house with a view to renovating it and selling it. On his first night he sees, and talks to, a woman who has appeared in the house despite all the doors being locked. She asks for a glass of water but when he comes back with one she has gone. He is sure she is a ghost and, later, he hears strange sounds like a heart beat. The next day, he tells Rupert and Amy about his experience [Amy believes in ghosts, Rupert doesn't] and they agree to stay at the old house with him that night. Nothing happens ...

5. The Private Army of Colonel Stone

Aired: 2/14/1978

The episode opens in Africa where three men who appear to be close to death are rescued. Then Rupert's elderly 'honorary aunt' Rachel writes to tell him that her son Jamie has died out in Africa and later rings to say she's been told that there's a man living at her son's cottage. The man is Colonel Stone who ran the expedition that Jamie was on when he died. He describes himself as a friend of Jamie's but Aunt Rachel says that Jamie told her that he didn't like the Colonel. Rupert and Amy decide to investigate.

6. Danny Boy

Aired: 2/21/1978

Rupert and Amy are in Manchester awaiting the arrival of a Hollywood producer who wants to make a film of one of Rupert's books. At dinner the night before the producer's arrival, Rupert speculates about a fellow diner who is demanding that the violinist play Danny Boy. The diner is American and Rupert thinks he looks like a Godfather type. The next morning, when they are meeting the producer at the airport, Rupert and Amy witness the arrival of an American singer, Carole Fortune, and notice that she is being watched by the 'Godfather' from the previous evening. Rupert is worried that the Godfather is going to kidnap the singer so he leaves Amy to deal with the Hollywood producer while he investigates.

7. Well Enough Alone

Aired: 2/28/1978

Rupert's agent brings him one of his books that has just been translated into Spanish. Later that day, a Mexican woman arrives at the Wilde's flat in York. She turns out to be the person who translates Rupert's books into Spanish. She is also the wife of a Mexican government minister who is in England on a state visit. She tells Rupert and Amy that her daughter came to England a year ago to study at a music college in Harrogate but, when she went to the college to see her daughter, she is told that her daughter never started her course. Rupert agrees to investigate and ropes Amy in as usual.

8. Express From Rome

Aired: 3/7/1978

The episode opens in Rome with a man entering a hotel room and telling the woman who's been waiting for him there that he's 'got them'. She says they need to hurry to catch the train. He tells her she'll have to go alone [he's been hurt]. When the woman arrives at the train, she bribes the conductor to give her another sleeper compartment. The compartment he gives her happens to have been booked by Rupert and Amy so the conductor gives them the woman's old compartment, telling them that the number they are reading on their reservation card as a 6 is actually an 8 so they have no idea they've been swapped. The compartment-swap leads to a case of mistaken identity and to Rupert and Amy's involvement in yet another adventure.

9. A Game For Two Players

Aired: 3/14/1978

The episode opens with a young boy standing by the side of the road, trying to hitch a lift. Rupert stops and picks him up. Because the boy doesn't have a specific address that he's trying to get to in York, Rupert takes him back to the flat and Amy. The boy, a Londoner, tells Rupert and Amy that he's looking for his mother who left home with a strange man, crying as she went; and later sent him a postcard of York Minster. Amy takes the boy under her wing while Rupert tries to find his mother.

10. Time And Again

Aired: 3/21/1978

The episode opens with Rupert standing in for his agent, Christopher, as a prison visitor, talking to a prison literary society. When he gets home, he discovers that one of the prisoners has hidden a handwritten novel in his briefcase. Amy starts to read it out loud to Rupert and thinks it's rather good. The next day she goes to London to submit one of her paintings to the Royal Academy and, on the way, she calls in to Christopher's office to give him the manuscript. While Amy is away and Rupert is out, their flat is ransacked. The next morning, Christopher finds that his office has also been ransacked and the manuscript stolen. Rupert decides to investigate.

11. Affray In Amsterdam

Aired: 3/28/1978

Rupert and Amy are off to Amsterdam to spend Rupert's Dutch royalties. While Amy is out shopping, Rupert takes a bath. When he comes out of the bathroom, he sees a pair of feet sticking out from behind the curtain. They belong to a woman who says that a man was following her so she ducked into his room to hide. In another room in the hotel two men are talking about the woman. One of the men says he thinks the woman knows he was following her. That evening, when Rupert and Amy are in the hotel bar, Rupert goes back to their room to get something he's forgotten. Unfortunately, the man who had been following the woman earlier is now searching Rupert's room and hits Rupert on the head, knocking him down. Rupert becomes determined to investigate.

12. A Suspicion Of Sudden Death

Aired: 4/4/1978

Rupert, Amy and Rupert's agent Christopher attend the funeral of one of Christopher's other authors, Will Carpenter, before going back to the author's house where his brother and sister are hosting the wake. Rupert sees one of Will's books on the shelf, looks at it then can't fit it back on the shelf so puts it on the shelf below. Later, he asks Will's brother if he can have one of Will's books as a keepsake, naming the one he'd been looking at earlier. Despite having claimed he didn't know his brother's house very well, Will's brother goes straight to the shelf where the book had been and is surprised to find it not there. After Rupert and Amy drive away, she discovers she's forgotten her gloves so Rupert goes back only to find Will's brother and sister enjoying a sing-song. Rupert is sure something isn't right so he and Amy decide to investigate.

13. Some Trust In Chariots

Aired: 4/11/1978

Amy describes her friend Debbie's letter as perfectly ordinary unless you read between the lines. Amy drives over to see Debbie, who tells her that she keeps seeing her sister Annette at a distance, often with Debbie's husband Mike. The problem is that Annette is in America. To make matters worse, when Debbie looks out of her bedroom window one day and sees Annette in the garden, she takes lots of photos but, when she has them developed, her sister isn't in the photos. When Amy gets home, she talks to Rupert who decides they should go and see Mike and tell him about the problems Debbie is having.