Series 3, Episode 5 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook. Host Katie and guest Emma Youell (@emloveoldstuff) review the penultimate episode of series three.
Art and Paul open in camo gear with binoculars, watching the field. They launch a drone to get a better look. It will not stop ascending. The batteries last twenty minutes. It crashes back down a foot away from them. Meanwhile a solar energy worker arrives, flings the farm gate open and walks off leaving it swinging, which prompts a real conversation between Katie and Emma about ancient trees, the Sycamore Gap felling, and why the lunch tree itself is now under threat from tree clearance. Andy's solution: bat boxes. If bats move in, the tree is protected. He cannot make one without his shed.
Kate visits Tony on the canal boat, unsure whether she needs to be invited aboard like a vampire. They talk about Lance and Maggie, Kate promises to move out and give them their space, and leaves telling Tony she loves her ship. Andy, now on litter picking duty, rescues a hedgehog from the road. His workmate Steve thought hedgehogs were flat. He has only ever seen them on the road. Andy takes the hedgehog into nearby woodland, stumbles on a derelict thatched cottage with an auction sign in the window, no reserve, Colchester, 22nd July, and takes a photo.
Andy climbs the lunch tree to install the bat box and gets within a foot of the magpie nest without looking in. Lance accidentally reaches Paul on the phone while calling the Bat Action Trust helpline, Paul plays along and produces his official bat ID badge, and for one brief moment stands his ground against Art before Art tries to trade bat protection for the field permission. Sly bastards, corrupt conservationists, says Lance. Back under the tree, they hear it. Metal on metal. Coins shifting directly above their heads. The episode ends.
Featuring: Andy (Mackenzie Crook), Lance (Toby Jones), Becky (Rachel Stirling), Veronica (Diana Rigg), Tony (Orion Ben).
Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram. For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms. Shop at Regton and use promo code DHPODCAST for 10% off selected items at checkout.
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