Classic TV Drama: The Onedin Line – #73 – S07 E01 – “Liverpool Bound”

A great Brit TV Classic – this episode

Two years have passed and James and Letty have been away at sea on the Christian Radich for six months. Letty is bored and wants to go home. They come across a couple adrift in a small boat, a Professor Dawson and his daughter Emma. At home, Elizabeth uses a new communications device called a telephone. She and Daniel have not seen each other for 3 months and all is not well between Charlotte and Samuel. Professor Dawson has been in Egypt excavating the tomb of Neferhotep and is zealously protecting a bag containing a mysterious object. It transpires that they have been on a dhow which was transporting lepers to Crete. James isolates them in their cabin and Emma develops a fever. Elizabeth goes to London to see Daniel and surprises him in his apartment with the daughter of Lord Talbot. William has sent a letter to Charlotte asking to call on her when he returns from Nice. Samuel says no and declares that he will never allow him in his house. Emma fears that the content of the bag is causing her fever and Dawson throws it over the side. Within minutes her fever breaks. It contained the mummified head of a young boy and Dawson says that he was told that anyone taking it would be cursed. Charlotte reads William’s letter asking for forgiveness. James shows Letty their new house. It is a mansion with 12 bedrooms when she was expecting a small villa. She is very unhappy and James declares: ‘damn it woman is there no pleasing you’!

The Onedin Line is a BBC television drama series, which ran from 1971 to 1980. The series was created by Cyril Abraham.

The series is set in Liverpool from 1860 to 1886^[1] and covers the rise of a fictional shipping company, the Onedin Line, named after its owner James Onedin. Around this, it depicts the lives of his family, most notably his brother and partner Robert, a ship chandler, and his sister Elizabeth, giving insight into the lifestyle and customs at the time, not only at sea, but also ashore (mostly lower- and upper-middle-class). The series also illustrates some of the changes in business and shipping, such as from wooden to steel ships and from sailing ships to steamships. It shows the role that ships played in such matters as international politics, uprisings and the slave trade.