The BEST episodes written by Ronald Harwood
#1 - Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 1 - Episode 2
Bixby is a New York dentist. Once a month, for many years, his wife goes to Baltimore by train to visit her aunt. She does not tell Bixby about her affair with the Colonel, a single man with a big house near Baltimore, who is the real reason for all these visits.One Christmas, Mrs Bixby gets a parting gift from the Colonel - a splendid mink coat. So that she can explain the coat to her husband, she devises a complicated scheme which depends on pawning the coat and then 'finding' the pawn ticket... but the best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley.
#2 - Parson's Pleasure
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 3 - Episode 6
Cyril Boggis is a rogue antique dealer who goes around posing as a clergyman and describing himself as President of the Society for the Preservation of Rare Furniture. Cyril makes a handsome living by buying valuable antiques cheap and selling them to Storker, another dealer. One day, Cyril calls on old Farmer Rummins and buys a piece of furniture from him which he knows is worth a fortune. He looks forward to making a huge profit on it - but his luck may be about to run out.
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#3 - Genesis and Catastrophe
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 2 - Episode 12
Klara. the mother of a new-born baby boy, is desperately worried, as she and her husband, Alois, have lost three other children in lessss than two years. A doctor convinces her that her new son is healthy, and Klara decides to call him Adolphus. She loves this beautiful child. Her husband comments on his small size, and the doctor pleads with him to give his wife better support. Alois tries to comfort Klara. ""He must live, Alois,"" she cries. ""Oh God, be merciful..."" We slowly realize who the child will grow up to be.
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#4 - A Dip in the Pool
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 1 - Episode 8
William Botibol, an American passenger on a British cruise ship, is anxious to win the rich sweepstake for predicting the distance the ship will travel in twenty-four hours - and William realizes that if the captain were to need to go back to pick up a man overboard, then his own ticket should win. So long as someone sees him go over the side, there can be no real problem...
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#5 - Taste
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 2 - Episode 7
Richard Pratt, a famous middle-aged wine connoisseur, is having dinner with the Schofields for the third time. Twice before, he has won a case of wine from Mike Schofield by correctly identifying the claret served with dinner. This time, Pratt wishes to increase the stakes - he offers his London house and his place in the country against the hand in marriage of the Schofields' teenage daughter, Louise. And Schofield (who is sure he has found a wine no one could identify) persuades Louise to agree to the bet. After all, this wine is unguessable...
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#6 - The Umbrella Man
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 2 - Episode 11
A smart old man, claiming to need his taxi fare home on a wet afternoon in London, persuades a stranger to buy his umbrella. Followed into a pub, it turns out that the Umbrellaa Man spends the money on a large whisky. What is going on?
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#7 - The Way Up to Heaven
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 1 - Episode 9
An elderly American couple, the Fosters, are planning a six-week trip to Paris to visit their grandchildren. Foster gets left behind, and his wife writes to him every week... on her return home, she does not seem very surprised to find that the lift in their house is stuck between two floors.
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#8 - William and Mary
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 1 - Episode 3
William Pearl, a philosophy don at an Oxford college, dies of cancer, and his widow, Mary, gets a letter from him. William tells her about his colleague John Landy's scheme for keeping William's brain alive after his death. He also advises Mary not to smoke, not to drink, not to use lipstick, and not to buy a television - and William had spent the long years of their life together disapproving of what Mary wanted to do. Mary calls John Landy and goes to visit what is left of William. She decides to take him home - she has her own ideas about their future relationship.
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#9 - Edward the Conqueror
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 1 - Episode 7
An elderly couple, Edward and Louisa, find their life invaded by a stray cat. The cat's knowledgeable response to Louisa's piano playing, and the pattern of warts on its face, convince her that pussy is a reincarnation of Franz Liszt, the composer. Liszt, the cat, does not trouble to conceal his dislike for Edward, who is becoming dangerously jealous...
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#10 - Depart in Peace
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 2 - Episode 10
An art collector finds himself drawn into an unusual struggle with two beautiful women.
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#11 - My Lady Love, My Dove
Tales of the Unexpected - Season 2 - Episode 8
Arthur Beauchamp's wife, Pamela, decides to have some fun with their weekend guests, the Snapes - they instal a hidden microphone in the Snapes' bedroom. After a game of bridge for high stakes, the microphone reveals that the Snapes have a complicated system for signalling their bridge hands to each other...