A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in Shepherd's Bush

[kmpowell]

[Terry McCann]

Watched this for the first time this week. It is woeful. I haven't gone through all Ray episodes yet, but I don't think there is a worse episode of Minder.

Maybe it didn't help having the flu at the time but this is 3/10.

[matt_shark]

any1 know the song thts playing when rays in the club wi his bird

[Stax]

I think the worst thing about this episode is trying to believe that a 'bird bandit' such as Ray would fall in love with someone he's just met and start talking about moving up north with her. He'd only met her the day before!

[Bantam79]

I have to say I love this episode as well as its set in my home town of Bradford. Billy's a great character and its a shame that George Costigan wasn't used more.

[Swainy]

I think the worst thing about this episode is trying to believe that a 'bird bandit' such as Ray would fall in love with someone he's just met and start talking about moving up north with her. He'd only met her the day before!

I think what went wrong here is that when this script was first written, the character of Ray was supposed to be a couple of years younger than Gary Webster (who was 26 at the time - he lied about his age to get the part) so I think that it might have worked better had Ray seemed a bit younger than he actually was. As the character developed, the writers seemed to quickly drop the idea that Ray was as nieve as he was first portrayed.

[flashchris]

I remember thinking this was an okay episode when I saw it years ago but when I saw it the other day I agree that it drags and hasn't many of the usual Minder laughs.

It is great to see Confident Clive and Bradford Billy as friends in Emmerdale these days though! (aka Patrick Mower and George Costigan)

I read very recently that it was Dennis's appearance in an ep of Special Branch (a Patrick Mower vehicle) that led to his part in The Sweeney. It is always interesting to hear snippets like that - I don't think I've heard anything new about Minder in a very long time.