The WORST episodes of Minder
Every episode of Minder ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Minder!
This comedy drama series featured Terry McCann, a former boxer with a conviction for G.B.H., and Arthur Daley, a second-hand car dealer with an eye for a nice little earner. Alongside his many business ventures, Arthur would regularly hire Terry out as a minder or bodyguard.
#1 - The Cruel Canal
Season 8 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/25/1991
When Ray's van breaks down whilst delivering two hundred video recorders to a client in Limehouse Arthur needs alternative transport - and fast, especially as he learns they were stolen property and psychotic Big Dai wants them back. His answer is to take them by barge, the ancient 'Persephone', a journey which inevitably ends in disaster and some very wet video recorders.
#2 - The Long Good Thursday
Season 10 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/10/1994
Café owner Luigi is opening a mafia-themed restaurant, the ‘Cosa Noshtra’ with Arthur’s financial backing. On the evening before the grand opening, ‘Cranky Frankie’ Connor escapes from prison and holds Arthur at gunpoint in his lockup. He demands to see Rosie, his wife, whom he suspects of having an affair with Luigi. Luigi’s wife Carla also has her suspicions.
#3 - On the Autofront
Season 10 - Episode 8 - Aired 2/24/1994
A price war has erupted and the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between Daley Motors and the former owner of a nearby car dealership is violated after moneylender Don Gedley takes over. Arthur attempts to increase business by radio advertising, but can only afford to use amateur announcers on a local pirate radio station. Grant Gedley, a thrusting young executive determined to prove himself to his father, tries to sabotage Arthur by setting him up with police on hit-and-run charges. Anxious to keep the peace and equally anxious to keep his son out of trouble, Don proposes that Arthur pleads guilty to all charges, in return for paying his fine. But Grant won’t cooperate and violence is the result.
#4 - The Great Depression of 1994
Season 10 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/17/1994
Ray’s Uncle Brian is suffering from what appears to be deep depression and won’t talk to anyone about it. Arthur seeks advice from a successful businessman who suffers similarly but has managed to live with it. Meanwhile, he sells a car to a punter, a retired Detective Inspector, who also suffers from depression since being dismissed for corruption. The man returns to the Winchester, on which site the house he was born in once stood, locks himself in the toilet and refuses to come out.
#5 - All Quiet on the West End Front
Season 10 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/10/1994
Arthur takes over a booth at a Business Expo, and sets up as a provider of services to busy executives – West End theatre visits, casinos, hard-to-get tickets for booked out shows etc. The initial attempt is a disaster, but another one goes fairly well with satisfied customers. This arouses the ire of another whose ideas he’s pinched. Ray is drawn into a fight with a hyperactive casino owner and also tries unsuccessfully to romance the Expo manageress. This arouses the jealousy of his current girlfriend, a jazz singer.
#6 - For a Few Dollars More
Season 9 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/1/1993
Marooned in Sydney and unable to pay their hotel bills or airfares home, Ray and Arthur move into a cheap backpackers hostel. Ray gets some bar work and Arthur falls in with Collins, a small-time street dealer and receiver of stolen goods whose methods he is very familiar with. He starts street trading and makes some money, but the police soon catch up with him. Glad to see the back of him, they give him forty-eight hours to leave Australia. Then businessman Reid mistakes Arthur for a big-time drug smuggler, and gives him twenty-four hours to get out of town.
#7 - A Taste of Money
Season 9 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/25/1993
Expecting a massive windfall from his unknown Australian relative, Arthur prepares to fly to Sydney with Ray. On arrival, they are met by Bill McCabe and booked into an expensive hotel. At the lawyers office, they discover that there are several claimants to the estate of great-uncle Joshua Daley. Arthur and Ray visit the Daley estate; Paradise Springs; a largely derelict homestead on several thousand acres of outback land - land that’s potentially valuable for grazing and possibly mineral rights.
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#8 - Last Orders at the Winchester
Season 9 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/4/1993
To celebrate Dave’s 25 years at the Winchester, Arthur offers to get the club redecorated. He gives the job to “Heart Attack” – but the latter promptly breaks through a bearing wall and the club is forced to close down. To raise the money for repairs, Arthur organises a fundraiser football match, refereed by DS Morley. Then ‘Heart Attack’, who’d vanished, reappears and hands over the money for the repairs, which he’s stolen from Vic, a rival club owner. To allay police suspicions, an auction is held in order to ‘launder’ the money.
#9 - The Roof of all Evil
Season 9 - Episode 8 - Aired 2/25/1993
Seeing the fashion for television satellite dishes, Arthur employs Logie Lawson, a self-trained electronics ‘expert’ to install ex-East German army dishes – but the instructions are all in German and they mess up their first job. They get an order to install one on the house of ‘Fingers’ Rossetti, who has a very bad reputation and a very short temper. The installation goes badly wrong and both Arthur and Logie, who has a fear of heights, are stranded on the roof.
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#10 - Gone with the Winchester
Season 9 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/11/1993
Toby ‘Jug’ Johnson is released from prison after many years and a drunken reunion begins at the Winchester between him, Arthur and Dave, who were members of the same gang in their youth, the ‘Brentford Backhanders’. Arthur begins to suspect that Dave is setting up a rival business with another gang member and they fall out. So Arthur starts a rival club and a price war erupts. Ray is eventually able to arrange a mediation and peace is restored.
#11 - Too Many Crooks
Season 8 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/7/1991
Gangland boss Billy Meadows comes to London from Birmingham for a meet with his estranged brother Vinnie to locate Henri, a French chef who has got his daughter pregnant. Henri is working for 'Daley Catering' who are about to cater for a police retirement party. He is kidnapped and returned to Birmingham for a shot-gun wedding, but all’s not well with Arthur. A police Superintendent at the party is admitted to hospital with possible food poisoning.
#12 - The Greatest Show in Willesden
Season 8 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/31/1991
Arthur and Monty Hinchcliffe book a former music hall act for the “British Volunteer” - retired ventriloquist 'Professor Pickford and Mystic Micky'. The act goes down well with the punters - but Tommy Pickford suffers from heart trouble and can't continue the act every night. Then some karaoke gear that Arthur's rented from Mrs Gabadini is stolen from his van. He sees dire consequences from admitting it's loss to Mrs Gabadini and her sons, but then Ray strikes lucky. He does a deal with dodgy wheeler-dealer club owner Barry to sell the karaoke machine, which he stole, to the Gabadinis.
#13 - All Things Brighton Beautiful
Season 10 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/20/1994
Businessman Sydney Myers has himself transported in a packing case to Arthur’s lockup. He had paid a skinhead to murder him after learning that he had terminal cancer, but when the diagnosis was proved false, he has tried to keep clear of the potential murderer.
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#14 - Another Case of Van Blank
Season 10 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/13/1994
To take advantage of new rules concerning duty-free alcohol, Arthur, Ray and Dave take a van to Calais, planning to stock up on cheap booze. Whilst Ray and Dave go to a hypermarket, Arthur has a meet with Henry/Henri, a former mate, and gets unwittingly drawn into breaking into a liquor warehouse.
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#15 - Opportunity Knocks and Bruises
Season 9 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/4/1993
Arthur sells some surplus stock to Nolan, a fairground owner, in exchange for a slot machine, but discovers that the machine is full of Irish money. He realises that Nolan was part of a major Dublin bank robbery some years previously and has thus hidden the money. With Ray's help, Arthur manages to inform DS Morley of what's been happening and an operation is set up to arrest Nolan and his cronies.
#16 - A Bird in the Hand Is Worth Two in Shepherd’s Bush
Season 8 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/17/1991
Bookmaker Stan Sorrell and Billy from Bradford have a £10,000 bet on a pigeon race from London to Bradford. Billy asks Arthur to lend him Ray for this job, so Ray goes to Bradford with Billy. Whilst there, he falls heavily for Sorrell's daughter Donna. Back in London, Ray starts thinking about moving to Bradford to be with Donna. Arthur sets up Donna in a nightclub with 'Nostalgic' to break up the budding romance.
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#17 - Hypnotising Rita
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/17/1984
Arthur meets a young girl who is being conned by a doctor hypnotist over a large sum of money coming to her, Then the doctor disappears, when the money is withheld and the girl tries to commit suicide. Terry finds out where he lives and informs the girls brother's who sort him out.
#18 - The Second Time Around
Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/26/1984
When an old author friend of Arthur's comes back to town to write a book,and sell her house.When she learns that her ex husband has sold the house without her permission, she hires Terry, and a secretary to help with ideas, and Arthur to help get the money from her husband.
#19 - Windows
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/7/1984
Arthur gets in on the keep fit fashion by opening an aerobics studio.Terry gets involved with two Italian families when the daughter of one family walks out on her husband, who is from the other family.
#20 - The Balance of Power
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/31/1984
When Arthur's car lot is compulsory purchased by the council, he decides to run as an independent candidate in the local bi-election for a seat on the council. Terry and a local reporter help out, but just as he is about to win, the opposition want him barred for overspending during his campaign.
#22 - The Last Temptation of Daley
Season 8 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/10/1991
Arthur’s doctor wants him to give up alcohol and tobacco if he wants to avoid an stomach ulcer, but this causes Arthur even more stress and he begins to believe that everyone's after him. The feeling is reinforced when building contractor Benny McLeish threatens him over a paint deal that goes sour. Arthur becomes so paranoid that he demands police protection.
#23 - Guess Who’s Coming to Pinner
Season 8 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/3/1991
Arthur is invited to the funeral of big-time gangster Charlie Johnson and the wake afterwards. The funeral is being carefully observed by police and the palatial Johnson home in Pinner is bugged. Police identify Tommy Hambury, a major crook returned after many years abroad and conclude that something major is being planned. Ray starts romancing Joanna, a friend of the family, who is later revealed to be an undercover police officer.
#25 - Dreamhouse
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/10/1982
Terry house sits for a rock star who has gone on tour, but it turns out that the star is broke and the bailiffs turn up to take the furniture away.