Oct.21-Oct.27, 2012 TV Club-The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries- Season 1-Ep. 8

[MacGyver]

Leave your thoughts, comments and reviews of "A Haunting We Will Go" (featuring Nancy Drew) episode of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries here.

[MacGyver]

Though I enjoy every single episode of the show, I think this may well be one of my favorites of the Nancy Drew episodes. It was partially written by Glen Larson and I always think it's pretty cool when one of the show creators and/or developers helps write an episode. "A Haunting We Will Go" is a cool title and immediately lets us know there will be some sort of supernatural occurence in the episode. This is proven right as we hear rumors of a phantom within the episode.
     But to start at the beginning, I love how this episode starts with a lady about to slash Nancy Drew to death with a knife! Whoa! That will get your attention. Of course, it's just part of a play that Nancy is rehearsing, but it's one of the stronger moments of peril Nancy faces in the typically non-violent series. (But this doesn't mean the show doesn't have plenty of action and suspense of course!)
Ned Nickerson is working as a producer of a 20-year-old play called Murder in the Fourth Act- which I think is a pretty cool title, by the way. George Fayne is helping on lights and Nancy Drew is playing the role of a maid. A local actress star is helping their production (who was actually in the original)- and suddenly, Ned is elated to find out that all the original performers have agreed to come back and recreate their roles on the same stage in River Heights where their show first opened. The profits from the show will benefit a children's charity which will be established upon the ruins of the old theater, which is to be torn down after the performance of the show.
        However, a number of suspicious accidents happen and Nancy is convinced something is going on. Lights and chandeliers fall without warning and Nancy is warned about the phantom of the theater. Nancy is also wondering why the cast all seem to have such hostility towards each other. Of course, as we find out from the conversations of these characters, they have all been blackmailed for 20 years and all of them are suspicious of each other, thinking one of them must be the blackmailer. This is why they all insist on staying together at the old hotel Excelsior which is right next to the old theater that they are working in. Nancy and George take to digging up clues in the library about the play and find out some interesting details- for one, the original director apparently skipped town quickly after the first and only performance of the play. After catching one of the actors poking around in the theater basement- and having a statue fall on him- Nancy decides to put some ultraviolet paint on the window in the basement (where someone has been sneaking into the theater) and other parts of the basement. This paint only shows up in ultraviolet light so it's invisible otherwise.
       Also, the actors have been working through the night to dig a hole through the basement walls of the theater to dig something out. They get stopped a couple of times by Ned and have to come up with some sort of feasible explanation. When Ned sees them hauling off a sarcophagus, Nancy gets her father to get a search warrant from the sheriff and the actors are forced to open the sarcophagus. It turns out it only has a pile of bricks- and not a dead body as was expected. When Ned throws the ultraviolet light on the actors during a rehearsal, Nancy finds out they all have paint on them.
        It's only in the performance (which Carson Drew arranges to have televised) that it all comes together. Again, the lights are thrown and then we find out that someone in the audience also has paint on them- the phantom! After he is caught, we find out the whole story. It turns out the director of the play was blackmailing the actors because they all had thought they'd killed him in an accident back after the first performance of the play 20 years ago. Of course, the director was a con man who was only fleecing the actors with the promise of a big play production and then had run with the money.
      As the truth comes out, the actors and actresses promise to help Nancy do enough performances of the play to raise the money needed for the charity. And thus a happy ending for all to this Scooby-Doo style episode.
      Of course, I'm a big fan of Scooby-Doo and that is probably one reason this episode is a favorite for me. There is something alluring about a mystery set in an old theater, where most of the shots are pretty dark and in the midst of that, we see shots of a dark figure running around- but only from a distance or from the feet down. Those kinds of shots just add to the suspense. And once again, Nancy solves a mystery that most of the others didn't even think existed and we have a great, exciting episode.
       

[MacGyver]

I also noticed that Ned was mistakenly called "Ted" a couple of times in this episode. I wonder if that was meant as a possible reference to the Ted (i.e. Ned) Nickerson character of the 1930s Nancy Drew movies?... Or maybe it's just a coincidence.

[tomswift2002]

Or it could've just been a slip of the tongue and no one considered it necessary to incur the cost of a reshoot or dubbing session.

[MacGyver]

Yeah, that's true too.