Main cast: Meg Foster (Deirdre), Erick Deshors (Jacques), and Page Fletcher (The Hitchhiker)
Director: Phillip Noyce
The fifth season of The Hitchhiker debut… hold on, two years after the previous season? On a new network to boot? Guess they had falling ratings or something to let HBO ditch this, I guess, or perhaps it was so popular that USA Network won some kind of bidding war? I wasn’t following the show back then so I wouldn’t know, but I’d welcome the intel from folks that know, because I’m a busybody that way.
At any rate, let’s see if they did any changes to the show. They were already doing some fade to black naughty scenes in the last few episodes of the previous season, so perhaps this time around the clothes really stay on.
So, The Martyr. The opening credits still roll to to the sight of Page Fletcher’s butt cheeks rubbing against one another as he walks, so that’s one wholesomeness that remains intact. Eh, Gilbert Adler has left the show as producer, probably because he has better things to do, replaced this time by a Tab Baird.
Oh, and we’re in France now, people! Guess it’s because the actors there are cheaper?
Well, Meg Foster ditches off a fur coat to reveal full rear end nudity and a bit of a side peek at her chest, so I guess that lays to rest any concerns about nudity that folks may have. She plays Deirdre, a posh blind lady that seeks the help of a cute young fellow, Jacques, to get back to her place, only to then offer him some tea. Or, shall I say, “tea” because it’s the kind that comes before the A. Sadly, there is no sex scene, because I suppose that are some areas that USA Network balks at crossing into.
Oh, Dierdre isn’t blind, as she confesses to Jacques after they’ve had their tea. She’s been semi-stalking him ever since she saw him, and she took the chance to pretend to be blind in order to lure him into her den. There’s another thing too: she’s married, and the husband is coming back right about now.
The whole thing is a plot to get some gullible bloke to kill her husband, of course. Dierdre has another lover, another gullible young man, waiting for her to be free so that they can be together, and she plans to enjoy life with this bloke using the money she would inherit from her husband. Jacques would take the fall, and life would be perfect.
Well, except that Jacques isn’t so easily shrugged off…
This episode is very Alfred Hitchcock Presents-y, and I like it. Despite the rather implausible set-up that relies on some lucky coincidence on the parts of everyone involved, the episode becomes a most amusing one when Deirdre starts spinning some story about how they need to be never be seen together, or else the cops will suspect him of being the killer, et cetera, and Jacques takes that story and transforms it into something far more complex, such as the lover Dierdre is seeing behind his back must be a blackmailer trying to extort money from her.
If Jacques were sweet and gullible, oh boy, he has a pretty ruthless streak of his own. In fact, given how neatly he pulls a checkmate on the woman he has developed an obsession for, I can only wonder how much of a front his whole “I’ll believe everything you say!” demeanor is.
At any rate, this episode is predictable, yes, but at the same time, a pretty intriguing watch all the same given the dynamic betwee Dierdre and Jacques. The fact that Eric Deshors is so easy on the eyes helps too. In fact, I’m surprised Dierdre would want to stay with her other toy boy when Jacques is a million times hotter.
This may not be the strongest episode in the show, but as a season opener, it’d do just nicely.
