Archer's Goon

 

I'm not sure what kind of browsing hole I was going down the other day to end up with me watching Archer's Goon. This is a Children's BBC serial from the early '90's. I remember watching the first episode or two on TV at the time. It is based on a 1984 children and young adult's novel by Diana Wynne Jones. It centres on an average middle class family from a suburban town who come home one day to find a dishevelled and aggressive young man sitting in their kitchen. He identifies himself only as "Goon" and says he has come at the bidding of somebody called "Archer", hence the title. It turns out that Quentin, the family's father played by Roger Lloyd-Pack of Only Fools and Horses fame, is involved in some underhand tax evasion scam. He has to produce short passages of words for the local mayor and he is rewarded with full council tax relief. The reason for them wanting these words is not fully explained in the TV series; it might be in the book which I have never read. Quentin's son Howard tries to get to the bottom of the mystery and discovers that the town is ruled by some kind of secret organization run by a group of siblings who control every aspect of the town's government and civil works. They are known only by single names, mostly surnames. They have underground facilities beneath the town's banks, libraries and garages. They travel through sewers or openly on motorbikes. They can control people's electrical appliances in their own homes and use light fittings as hidden microphones to eavesdrop. Amazingly their power extends to the supernatural, the ability to control time and space itself. It's a remarkable story. Of course there are plenty of stories about conspiracies involving secret societies controlling institutions behind the scenes, but this is the first one I've ever heard of that is produced for younger viewers. Unfortunately the author died in 2011, but she has been compared to JK Rowling. There is an Illuminati-type plot in some of the Harry Potter books. These days, in this age of censorship and paranoia, you probably would not find mainstream media making a TV programme like this for kids. The book is still available though, see: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47521.Archer_s_Goon. See here for all six episodes on a playlist. The quality is not the best; it's an old home VHS recording, but it is watchable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKlXKjosfFg&list=PLmAyiwH3LpisjfEMJvsykKmcXDtVcLImQ.