As Jeannie and Jeff drove off along the long and winding road, and Marty and Wyvern returned to the ether, we were left with the sense that Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) has come a long way since its first episode six weeks ago.

Tonight’s adventure was as assured a piece of television as you’re likely to see this year; eschewing narrative TV convention – in that the characters mustn’t step outside the strictures of the central premise – and then, with great confidence, wiping the slate clean (I’ll come back to this shortly). The script was Charlie Higson’s most whimsical, but also the darkest we’ve seen. Tea shops and village pubs, police brutality and human sacrifice; one felt the wash of obviously sourced material (chiefly, The Wicker Man and The Prisoner) coalescing with a now definitiveR&H(D) house-style. The sequence of Marty quaffing pints with abandon whilst Jeff desperately tried to escape The Village was underscored with brassy filmic music that gradually rose, gripping in the mix as Marty drank and drank and Jeff passed the same road sign over and over. This compelling scene is the epitome of the new Randall and Hopkirk.

At last it didn’t feel as though Higson was just playing with the format. In the early episodes, with ironic references to painted backdrops and incongruous name-checking of the cast and crew from the original R&H(D), it felt very much as though this Vic and Bob vehicle was a show about resurrecting an old TV programme. Our basic reference points were still Kenneth Cope and Mike Pratt, to whom our 2000 edition continually tipped a wink. But as the episodes rolled by, we’ve seen new elements added to the mix (chiefly Marty’s experiences in the afterlife) and it feels now as though the whole concept is purely Higson’s. And never more so than tonight as he built an episode around inverting all he’d established: Marty essentially living and visible to others, Jeff now out of place, Wyvern interacting not with Marty but with Jeannie, Jeannie encountering Marty – this was heady stuff, but beautifully played and on an epic scale.

And thus, as it must be, all of the damage wrought had to be undone by the end of the episode. But here Higson didn’t just reset the programme – he wiped it. It was almost unbearable as Marty watched his partner and fiancée return to their real lives, with all memory of him gone. And as Wyvern gently led him away we were reminded that our late crime-fighting hero was still fighting hard not to die in resolve.

Here we left Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) with a real sense of an end-of-series last rites.

Of course we know, as we’ve always known, that all can simply be undone; “and Randall and Hopkirk will return next year” (or whenever). This is good news. Over six enjoyable episodes it’s only really now that Messrs. Higson, Reeves and Mortimer have finally laid to rest the ghosts of the past, and it could be argued that they leave R&H(D) stronger than when they found it. Its continuation is a must. With rumours of writers Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts on board for series two it’s good to know life will continue for Jeff Hopkirk and his partner, the ghost.

Reeves and Mortimer are usually the last word.

However this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are funny: Shooting Stars contained everything you need to know about cheesy quiz shows and Families at War provided the definitive statement on Saturday night light entertainment. Similarly, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) may well be the epitome of 21st century Saturday night primetime drama.

Certainly, after last week’s visually dazzling but ultimately insubstantial opener, “Mental Apparition Disorder” felt very much like real Saturday night entertainment. In a week in which The Matrix grabbed four technical Oscars R&H(D) is fast becoming its televisual equivalent, with some stunning directorial tricks and effects in this second episode. Reeves and Mortimer too, seemed more at ease in their roles, and the heavenly Tom Baker provided welcome ballast. Like the over-the-top direction, there was surfeit of famous faces on which to engorge. Tempted by the credibility of Messrs Higson, Reeves and Mortimer, Hugh Laurie, Steven Berkoff and Martin Clunes all wandered across our screens providing archly knowing performances.

So lots of sparkle, but this was by no means the perfect hour of entertainment. A Prisonercribbed story, coupled with Marty Hopkirk’s trawl through limbo allowed scriptwriter Higson to explore a number of surreal concepts, yet these were merely welcome distractions. The central plotline (that of the nefarious Laurie’s attempt to brainwash his patients) unravelled most inelegantly, with very little progression provided by our heroes. In fact the dénouement was entirely dependent upon an arbitrary skill that Hopkirk had picked up earlier in the episode. No detection was required, but of more concern was the fact that the central gimmick of the series (i.e. a dead spirit using their moving unseen to aid the resolution of a mystery) has not yet been employed in the furtherance of an investigation. Our most recent Saturday night dose of the fantastique has been Jonathan Creek, so perhaps it was inevitable that structurally R&H(D)was to be something of a disappointment, and it is reasonable to assert that such comparisons are little unfair. Yet, Higson’s limitations as a writer of such fiction are usefully exposed when held up to the rigorous examination of Creek.

Still, let’s not be too mealy mouthed. The successful evocation of the genuine weirdness of the original series, as well as the authenticity of the Prisoner pastiche provided admirable compensation for the ill-disciplined plot. Certainly, this series appears to have captured that unmistakable 1960s essence far more successfully than Bugs, or indeed Crime Traveller. Furthermore, there was little of the cynicism usually redolent in such remakes. This was good, clean fun and has the makings of an obvious hit. It is unclear whether Vic and Bob are fans of the original series, yet it is obvious that Higson has fond recollections of not just Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) but a swathe of classic British TV. One hopes his fondness extends beyond such programmes’ peculiarly British eccentricities and takes Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) into the ingenious narrative territory populated by McGoohan and the rest.