"Jason King - Buried in the Cold, Cold Ground"
Episode 1.3, aired October 6, 1971

This is a British series that ran from 1971 to 1972 and was a spin off from a previous series called Department S. In this series, the character, Jason King (Peter Wyngarde), carrying over from the earlier series, has stopped working for law enforcement and become a fulltime writer of crime mystery novels. In the process of a job which would usually involve nothing more than sitting at a typewriter, he manages to get embroiled in various real life mysteries that he feels compelled to resolve. The character of Jason King is described at the Internet Movie Data Base in the summary as a hedonistic, womanizing dandy, which seems like a darn good description.

In this episode a prisoner named Paul Lance is released from a Swiss prison after serving a term for stealing one million francs with some friends. Apparently, he and his friends had worked for "The Organization", a crime syndicate. They had stolen the money without the input or approval of their bosses and hidden it. They were caught but the money was never found. All the other participants had already been released from prison after which each was apprehended by The Organization and interrogated as to the whereabouts of the money. None of the others had revealed the location of the loot and were consequently killed by their former bosses.

As he is being released, Lance meets with the inspector in charge of his case, who assures him that once he gets out the Organization will be after him. The Inspector offers him a slim chance of survival if he cooperates, none if he doesn't. Lance reveals nothing and leaves in a taxi. Another man watches his departure and the word goes out that Lance is out of prison. In the cab, Lance takes a knife and cuts open the lining of his jacket. He pulls a sheet of paper with writing on it out of the lining and begins studying it.

At Organization headquarters, the top thug, Dacre (Frederick Jaeger) gets the message about Lance and conveys this information to his cohort, Sandro (Gary Raymond) who asks "What are we waiting for?" Lance is then seen being let off by the cab in a wooded area where he digs a box out of the ground.

Jason King, meanwhile, has a deadline and tells his girlfriend that he has to retreat to his "monastic cell" in the south of France to finish his novel. While driving there in his Rolls Royce he picks up a pretty young woman hitchhiker, Felicity (Michelle Dotrice) and Lance who is also hitchhiking with his box. As soon as he picks up Lance, Dacre and Sandro are right behind them. Dacre, who is the passenger, suggests to Sandro that they are too close but Sandro says "I want him to see us". Lance, does, indeed see them, and asks Jason if he will deliver the box to a friend's girlfriend in Avignon. Lance then has Jason drop him off in Lyon.

Jason tells Felicity he does not believe Lance's story and believes the box contains something of great value. He opens the box and finds a Bible. He then sees that on one page there are pinholes under selected letters. Those letters spell out "le jeune croix triangle". He does not know the meaning of this code but, as a precaution, takes a pin and pinpoints all the letters on the page so the code will not be evident to anyone else.

Back in Lyon, Lance has checked into a room but is found by Dacre and Sandro who kill him. Jason, in Avignon, delivers the box to the person Lance had designated who turns out to be Lance's sister, not a friend's girlfriend. After Jason leaves, Dacre and Sandro show up and get the Bible. They discover the page filled with pinholes and immediately deduce this is the work of Jason King.

In Lyon, the maid finds Lance's body and contacts the police. They get in touch with his sister who identifies Dacre and Sandro as the men who took the Bible. Jason is still trying to puzzle out the code and realizes that it refers to the town of St. Paul le Jeune. He goes there and sees the sign of a triangle outside a religious order. He is told by a nun there that the triangle signifies that it is a place where tramps and vagabonds are welcome. Jason speaks with a tramp, Mistral, who tells him the triangle represents a woman and the cross within the triangle means a generous woman. He tells Jason there is such a woman there, a British artist. Jason goes to visit her. In the meantime, Dacre and Sandro have broken into Jason's place and found his research on the code. They head out to catch up with him.

Back in Saint Paul Le Jeune, the artist tells Jason she has a building in her yard that the tramps sometimes stay in when they come down from the mountains in the Spring on their way to the sea. He asks to see it. Once inside the stone shack he feels that the wood is loose in the floor. The police show up at Jason's place and then get a call from the Inspector at Saint Paul le Jeune to come there.

Dacre and Sandro show up at the stone shack and start digging into a hole in the floor. Jason shines a flashlight on them and they throw some of the wood from the floor at him and run out only to be confronted by the police who arrest them.

The show is wonderfully stylish and witty. Peter Wyngarde in particular creates a fascinating and amusing character in Jason King. My favorite exchange is when Felicity asks him if she can make him breakfast and suggests eggs and bacon to which he replies "Don't be revolting". She offers to make toast in the alternative to which he rejoins "I thought you said breakfast, not Mass". The story is fairly complex and very cleverly presented. It's a highly entertaining hour.

Well, he only has a few lines, but he has an incredible wardrobe for this part. He wears about five different outfits, among which are a gray intarsia sweater, a light blue sweater, and a black overcoat with a fedora and scarf. And he spends the entire episode with a pair of dark glasses on. He lifts them only once, apparently to underline his position that they need to get after Lance forthwith. So, not a lot of acting opportunities in this project for Gary, but he does manage to convey cool menace very effectively in those few minutes he is on screen.

Sandro is certainly the most fashionable hit man ever with his many lovely ensembles. Gary looks great in the sunglasses but they hide his beautiful eyes, which is a loss. He is by *far* the best looking man on the show. Although Peter Wyngarde has an interesting look as Jason King, it's rather bizarre, what with his mop of hair and huge mustache. So, there's no competition for Gary in the gorgeousness sweepstakes in this one.

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