That's not to say the episodes aren't still fun, far from it - the quality this season is every bit as high as it was in seasons four or five. And there is still room for some variation in the format, as we shall see.
The first episode, Rumpole à la Carte, centres around an arrogant, aggressive celebrity chef Jean Pierre O'Higgins (very much in the style of a Marco Pierre White or a Gordon Ramsay, but I don't know if this is supposed to be a satire on one chef in specific) played by T P "Ex-President Sarkoff (formerly of NASA)" McKenna, who hires Rumpole to defend him because Rumpole is the only customer who has dared defy him in his restaurant. This creates a fun dynamic between Rumpole and O'Higgins that makes this a good season opener. Also appearing is James "King Henry VII" Maxwell, although he is wasted as another of Hilda's distant relatives, in a mere retread of a subplot we have seen done before in season five.
The Peter Bowles episode, Rumpole and the Summer of Discontent, is also this season's topical episode. Clearly inspired by a number of high-profile strike actions in the UK in the mid-to-late 1980s, in this episode it seems as though everyone is on strike, from Hilda refusing to cook and clean the Rumpoles' flat through to the Old Bailey judges - we see the latter from the perspective of Judge Featherstone, who puts his foot in it (as usual) with both his wife Marigold and the Lord Chancellor, both of whom mock him by comparing him to a trade union shop steward.
Rumpole and the Right to Silence is a fairly typical example of a murder where Rumpole acts for the defence and gets his client off by discovering the real killer, noteworthy partly for featuring a thinly-veiled version of the freemasons (here called the "ostlers"), but mainly for some of the guest actors - Maurice "Stotzy" Roëves is the accused, Christopher "Henry Gordon Jago" Benjamin a witness.
This is also the first appearance of a new recurring judge, Mr Justice Ollie Oliphant, played by James "Barliman Butterbur" Grout. Possibly the most caricatured of all the Rumpole of the Bailey judges, he is obsessed with "common sense" and brings it up virtually every time he speaks. We shall see him twice this season, and twice more in the following season.
Speaking of recurring judges, that leads me to Rumpole at Sea, arguably the most format-breaking of all the format-breaking episodes, because it is the only episode of Rumpole not based around Rumpole's involvement in a current case-of-the-week. Instead it is a character piece centred on Judge Graves (Robin Bailey, in his fifth appearance), as he and the Rumpoles find themselves in the contrived situation of having coincidentally gone on holiday on the same cruise ship.
There they meet up with mystery writer Howard Swainton (Julian "Sarge" Holloway) who is convinced that one of the other couples on board is acting suspiciously. With Swainton for the prosecution, Graves and Rumpole soon fall into their natural positions as judge and defence counsel respectively, showing that they cannot escape these roles even on holiday.
For such a farcical scenario, the resolution ends up being one of the most seriously emotional we have seen in the series for quite some time, as it turns out that the couples' strange behaviour is explained by their recognition of Judge Graves as the one who prosecuted them many years before. For those of us who enjoy the serious side of Rumpole as much as, if not more than, the comic, this denouement turns this into the best episode of the season.
The return of Phyllida Erskine-Brown QC in Rumpole and the Quacks brings to a head the rather tedious ongoing subplot about the Erskine-Browns' failing marriage, with Phyllida constantly suspecting her husband Claude (Julian Curry, an underrated supporting player throughout the series) of infidelity. The fact that Claude does try (unsuccessfully) to have extra-marital affairs, and is just as unsuccessful in his attempts at hiding this fact from his wife, doesn't stop her from being a hypocrite, since we have seen her plan affairs of her own, and on at least one occasion (in Rumpole's Return) it is implied that Phyllida actually went through with it.
Anyway, the best thing about Rumpole and the Quacks is a brief appearance by Graham "Soldeed" Crowden as the head of a medical tribunal.
The season-ending subversion of the usual format is self-evident from the title: Rumpole for the Prosecution. Tempted by the money on offer, Rumpole agrees to act for the private prosecution of a murder, with "Soapy" Sam Ballard QC acting for the defence - the complete reversal of their usual situations giving rise to many comic moments, and even the judge (Ollie Oliphant again) can't believe they're the right way round.
The twist isn't at all difficult to guess - Rumpole just can't help himself, and proves a more successful defender than the defence team. This is one of the better episodes of the season, balancing the comedy and the drama more successfully than most of the others managed, allowing the season to end on a positive.
On a final, sadder note, this is the first season that didn't begin every episode with the iconic Thames Television ident, since that was not used by programmes made after 1989. You miss it when it's gone.
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