cult film freak: ANN CURTHOYS & NINA THOMAS IN 'THE SWEENEY: TOMORROW MAN'

Title: THE SWEENEY: TOMORROW MAN Year: 1976 Rating: ***1/2

Another episode with an obvious inspiration drawn from Peter Falk's COLUMBO... although it has nothing to do with John Thaw as Inspector Regan or Dennis Waterman as the younger Carter badgering a suspect...

Instead the similarity occurs in the cold open when John Hurt as computer expert Tony Gray ignites a deliberately overboard ploy in chewing-out boss George Cole... but that results in revenge and trickery instead of murder...

Ann Curthoys in THE SWEENEY: Tomorrow Man with John Thaw and Dennis Waterman

So Hurt joins an already targeted shady/crooked businessman, providing himself a con game despite the Flying Squad's own undercover officer in natural beauty Ann Curthoys, joining his red-herring computer seminar at a tech convention where most of the episode takes place...

But it's his adorable redhead/girl-next-door moll, Nina Thomas, that makes TOMORROW MAN more intriguing than it would've been otherwise... a shame given the stellar cast, in particular the future first ALIEN victim and Dennis Waterman's next series' (MINDER) co-star Cole, maintaining a somewhat muddled con that neither Regan, Carter or the audience can completely invest in.