Series / Who Pays the Ferryman?

Who Pays the Ferryman? is a British TV drama series written by Michael J. Bird, produced by The BBC and first broadcast in 1977. Fully intended to be a one-off series, it ran for eight episodes.

Alan Haldane (played by Jack Hedley) is a boat designer who has lost both his wife and (more recently) his business. At a loose end, he flies out to the Greek island of Crete, where he fought with the local resistance three decades ago during World War II and had a passionate relationship with a local woman who he never heard from after the war ended.

When he gets there, he finds that there are many who remember him as "Leandros", a hero of the wartime resistance. He quickly befriends an attractive local businesswoman, Annika (Betty Arvaniti). He also finds, though, that his lover (who has since died) bore his child who is now married with a child of her own. And that there are those who can neither forget nor forgive what happened during the war.

The series, which was well-regarded and exported to several other countries, was filmed mostly on location in Crete and made good use of the local scenery. Notably, several Greek characters were played by Greek actors and the use of local people as extras greatly added to its authenticity, as did the author's knowledge of Greek history and folklore. It is also remembered for its theme tune, composed by Yannis Markopoulos.

The show contains examples of:

• The '70s: The show was made, and is set, in 1977 — with clothing and hairstyles to match.
• Actor Allusion: Stefan Gryff plays a police officer identified only as "The Major" who is very similar to (and may actually be the same person as) Captain Krasakis, a police officer played by Gryff in The Lotus Eaters, an earlier drama series that was also written by Michael J. Bird and set in Crete.
• Age-Gap Romance: Duncan and Sam, he being considerably older than her (by 29 years, going by the respective ages of their actors).
• The Alleged Car: Nikos's car won't start. Which foreshadows that he will have to borrow someone else's at some point.
• All There in the Manual: Although the tie-in novel omits entire sub-plots like the stories of the Hebdens and Duncan Neve, it does give some more background to a few characters. Haldane, for example, was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal ^note  a bravery medal for non-officers, considered to be equivalent to the officers-only Distinguished Service Order and as such, one level down from the Victoria Cross for his war service. Babis, meanwhile, spoke out against the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974 and was imprisoned and tortured for this. And the Major is given the surname Krasakis.
• Ambiguous Situation: A few.
  • Is the Major the same person as Captain Krasakis, a similar character played by the same actor in The Lotus Eaters? The fact that he has this surname in the tie-in novel indicates that this is the case.
  • How much does Annika know (or guess) about Haldane's wartime relationship with her sister? We do not see all of her conversation with Lorna, who knows it all. She also wonders about why Haldane is so keen to help Elena, and is curious about his inter-generational friendship with Alexis. She only finds out for sure at the end, but there are hints before then that she may have some suspicions.
  • Did Haldane commit adultery when he was married? It's stated that he's been a widower for six years, but when we see Lorna, she states that she and Haldane were in a relationship for four years and it ended three years ago. Unless Writers Cannot Do Math, that would mean they were having an affair at the time of his wife's death.
  • Why is William Hebden taken away by the police after being confronted by the peasant who wanted to kill him? He has not committed any crime, although the police may be interested in anything he might have to say about the wartime massacre. Or the Major might be taking him away for his own safety, as he could be deemed to be a suicide risk, in addition to which others may wish him harm.
• Amicable Exes: Alan and Lorna. She has no hard feelings after she gets over the fact that he did not invite her to Crete to be with him as she had been led to believe. He had in fact written back to her wishing her the best for the future.
• And I Must Scream: The final, well-deserved fate of Katerina. She is paralysed and rendered incapable of speech after suffering a stroke upon hearing of the deaths of Elena, Nikos and Alexis. Annika, who finds out that Katerina had set in motion the events that led to their deaths, confronts her over this and places a picture of them in view of her bed, meaning she has no choice but to look at them whenever she's awake.
• And Starring: For the episodes in which he appears, Stefan Gryff (the Major) gets the "with" credit.
• Author Appeal: This is one of several drama series by Michael J. Bird to be set in the Mediterranean. He also wrote The Lotus Eaters (1972-73, also set in Crete ^note  and which, as stated above, is probably set in the same universe as Who Pays the Ferryman?, given that Stefan Gryff plays more or less the same character in both shows ), The Aphrodite Inheritance (1979, Cyprus), and The Dark Side of the Sun (1983, Rhodes).
• Awful Wedded Life: Downplayed, but the first we see of Elena and Nikos is them arguing. Babis explains why things aren't good between them — a development company wants to buy their taverna, knock it down and build a hotel. Nikos is in favour, but the taverna is in Elena's name, and she wants to keep it as she doesn't want the area to be over-developed (Babis, who owns a house nearby, acknowledges that the development company is offering them a good price but privately shares Elena's concern about the developers). In part, Nikos's anger is due to the fact that his wife owning the business runs contrary to the traditional masculine Greek values by which he was raised. Things get much better between them as the series progresses.
• Because I Said So: Katerina more or less lives by this trope — and as the matriarch of an influential land-owning family, it works to an extent.
• The Bet: The focus of the fifth episode is a wager that Haldane is talked into making with Xenophon the fisherman, who believes that his caique (sailing boat) must be faster than Haldane's, as no foreigner can build a caique as well as a Cretan. Therefore, they must have a race between the two, with the loser being forced to give his caique to the winner. Haldane wins, potentially leaving Xenophon bereft as he needs his caique for his livelihood. Luckily for him, Haldane, who has no need of a second caique, is prepared to sell it back to him for a bottle of brandy.
• British Brevity: It was a single series that ran for eight episodes.
• Broken Pedestal: William Hebden to his daughter Jo, after the truth of his wartime service is revealed.
• Busman's Holiday: Len Cooper is a British policeman whose holiday to Crete becomes one of these when he recognises Duncan Neve, a man who committed a murder in Leicester nine years ago, while having dinner in Elena's taverna.
• Cain and Abel: Name-checked by Haldane in his first spoken scene (a flashback, he having already been seen arriving in Crete) which established his back-story — he lost his boat-building business in England when his brother David and another shareholder went behind his back to sell said business. When David protests at the allusion, Alan muses that maybe the story of Joseph and his brothers would perhaps be more fitting.
• Chekhov's Gun: The red sportscar Haldane buys will turn out to be important; Mateos cuts the brake cables in an attempt to kill Haldane, but he lends it to Nikos when his car breaks down. Nikos is killed as a result, along with Elena and Alexis.
• Chekhov's Skill: The first few scenes establish that Haldane designs and builds boats for a living — or did until his business was sold. After moving to Elounda, he acquires and restores an old caique. Part of his plan for redeveloping Elounda involves offering sailing holidays, with the boats to be designed by him.
• Cool Aunt: Annika, to Elena.
• Companion Cube: Over several episodes, Haldane rebuilds an old caique which he names The Knot. It becomes symbolic of his ties to Crete, and he becomes very attached to it. He and those close to him are therefore devastated when it is all but destroyed by fire. Fortunately, he has by this point acquired many friends who are determined to help him rebuild it, even providing the materials to do so. The closing credits play out over a shot of Haldane and Annika sailing in it.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Invoked by Lorna when she points out that, as well as just telling Annika that he loves her, Haldane should also tell her the truth about his being Elena's biological father, and actually should have already done so. He rationalises his decision to keep quiet about this by claiming that she would end things with him, and probably never want to see him again, if she were to learn the truth. The ending shows that he was wrong, as she wants to continue their relationship after finding out, although by that point Elena and her family are dead.
  • In a similar vein, it never seems to occur to Katerina that the most effective way to turn Annika against Haldane would be to tell her the truth about Elena's parentage.
  • Given that Annika know that Mateos is against Haldane (having found out that Mateos sent the telegram to Lorna), it would make sense for her to tell Haldane this, as it might clue him into who is set against him. As it is, Annika does not even seem to suspect that the break-in and the arson were committed by Mateos.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Sam, a former drug addict who managed to kick the habit by being forced to go cold turkey by Duncan. Duncan himself is a murderer on the run, although the murder he committed was very much a mercy-killing, and he always knew that the law would eventually catch up with him.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: A male, platonic example. Babis is at first decidedly lukewarm to see his old friend Leandros again. It's only after they talk and it becomes clear that Haldane and Melina both tried to contact each other after the former was sent back to England, but neither of them received each other's letters, that he warms to him. Babis's reluctance to initially welcome his old friend was because he thought that Haldane had intentionally abandoned Melina when she was pregnant with his child; in fact, Haldane hadn't even known she was pregnant, as he never received her letters.
• The Determinator: Plenty. Haldane himself is the most obvious, but we also have the Major and some of the one-shot characters like Tony Viglis, Len Cooper and Sam. Katerina and Mateos provide villainous examples of this.
• Didn't Think This Through: Mateos falls victim to this a few times.
  • When he comes across Lorna's letter to Haldane, he sends her a telegram (purportedly from Haldane) inviting her to join him in Crete. And buys her a plane ticket to seal the deal. He hopes, of course, that this will alienate Annika from Haldane, allowing him to move in on her. Annika finds out, though, by going around all of the travel agents in Heraklion to find out who bought the plane ticket (which wasn't even necessary, as Lorna says she'd've just bought one herself). When she confronts Mateos for his duplicity, she fires him.
  • When he sets fire to Haldane's caique, he not only uses petrol but leaves the empty jerry-can on the burning boat, making it really easy for the police to deduce that it was an act of arson which, given the fact that it was clearly directed against Haldane, can be tied in with the earlier break-in at the guy's house (also committed by Mateos).
  • When he gets to the point of outright planning to kill Haldane, he cuts the brake cables on his car. He fails to realise that Haldane might lend his car to someone else. Which is what happens — Elena, Nikos and Alexis are all killed in the subsequent crash.
• Due to the Dead: Tony Viglis is an Australian of Greek ancestry who wants to return his grandfather's remains to the village where he was born, this having been the old man's dying wish. Unfortunately, some of the locals have other ideas due to a long-running blood feud involving Viglis's family (which is hinted to have been the reason why the grandfather left Crete in the first place). Haldane makes his support of Viglis clear, and by the end of the episode Annika and Petros both lay flowers on the grave, showing their respect for the deceased despite the historical enmity between the Matakis and Viglis families.
  • Later, in a more downplayed example, we see Haldane visiting Melina's grave and leaving his wartime photo of her there. At the end, he and Annika visit Melina's grave.
• During the War: Although the series is set in the then-present (1977), much of the plot is driven by what happened in World War II. Haldane was a soldier who fought with the resistance (whose numbers included Babis) for three years and became widely known across Crete for his heroism, to the piont where people still talk of Leandros (his nom de guerre) over thirty years later. His relationship with Melina earned him Katerina's lasting hatred which is more than apparent when he returns.
• Easter Episode: The fifth episode takes place over the Easter weekend, with everyone attending the parade with lit candles. The theme of death and rebirth is evident in the story of Haldane's caique, which he has restored only for it to be destroyed; at the end, he starts to rebuild it.
• Everybody Smokes: A given with the time period and setting (Greece in the 1970s).
• Evil Matriarch: Katerina Matakis, the elderly mother of Melina and Annika, who can never forgive Leandros for getting the former pregnant. She intercepted his letters to Melina and let her believe that he had abandoned her. Although she acts in a very controlling way towards her two surviving children, Annika and Petros, it's clear that she doesn't have as much power over them as she used to. Having failed to turn both of them against Haldane, she co-opts Mateos into her schemes and manipulates him into trying to kill the Englishman.
• Evil Wears Black: Mateos is introduced dressed all in black, although he subsequently varies the colour of his shirts. Katerina is only ever shown in black, although this is justified by her status as a widow.
• Feuding Families: Plenty, what with much of the series being set in rural Crete, where blood feuds and vendettas that lasted for generations used to be fairly common.
  • The peasant who wants to kill William Hebden is motivated by the fact that he believes Hebden to be responsible for the death of his son.
  • Tony Viglis's main problem is that by trying to respect his late grandfather's dying wish, he unknowingly walks straight into one. As this particular feud is between the Viglis and Matakis families (both families being from the same village), Annika finds herself involved even though she had not even been born when it started. Katerina, being Katerina, is determined to continue the feud and prevent Viglis senior from being buried in the village — and as the Matakis family major landowner and employer there, she is easily able to get all of the villagers to do her bidding. It's only thanks to Babis (who gets the archbishop to force the local priest to conduct the service) and the Major (who gets his men to transport the coffin to the village after the undertaker is pressured into backing out) that the funeral is able to go ahead, and even then there's nearly a riot. The deceased is only allowed to rest in peace after Annika and Petros both rebel against their mother and make public gestures of mourning, which ends the feud.
  • The main one, though, is Katerina's undying hatred of Haldane because he got her daughter pregnant (which has as much if not more to do with him being a foreigner than anything concerning family honour). Since she does not explain this to her surviving children (one of whom is in love with Haldane), neither of them are particularly interested in continuing the feud, dismissing their mother's feelings as a case of irrational hatred of a foreigner, a trait that she most definitely exhibits in any case.
  • In the final episode, Haldane, who as an outsider had previously been dismissive of all of the blood feuding going on on Crete, gets in on the act when he goes after Mateos and his brother in revenge for their killing of Elena, Nikos and Alexis.
• Filler: The second and sixth episodes come across as this due to their focus on one-shot characters, with Haldane reduced to a supporting role as someone who happens to help or befriend said one-shot characters due to his being a fellow-Brit in a foreign land. To modern audiences, the dancing sequences (featuring extras recruited locally to add to the atmosphere) may come across as this.
• Foreshadowing: The first conversation between Haldane and Annika, who are overlooking an olive grove he recalls fighting in during the war, is loaded with this.
  Annika: Men have died in battle a lot on Crete. Women and children too. This is an island of slaughter.
  [slightly later]
  Haldane: The scars we made are healed.
  Annika: Some of them, perhaps.
  • Haldane also states in the first episode that his wife died in a car crash. This is ultimately how his daughter, grandson and son-in-law will die.
  • In the seventh episode, Haldane visits Melina's grave, foreshadowing that there will soon be more deaths.
• Genre Shift: For the last two episodes, we go from drama to full-on tragedy.
• The Ghost: We never see Annika's grown-up children, who are said to be studying abroad.
• Good Samaritan: Haldane is prone to helping out strangers in need, especially outsiders. Tony Viglis and Duncan Neve both get put up in his (actually Babis's) house after sustaining injuries, and he charges neither of them for his hospitality. Neve is decidedly the less grateful of the two; Haldane admits to Annika that he only lets him stay because he finds him interesting, being curious as to why an Englishman should have chosen to live in a very remote part of Crete.
• Gorgeous Greek: Annika. Elena too. And Melina, if the old photo Haldane has is anything to go by.
• Graceful Loser: Xenophon, who accepts his defeat in the boat race with good grace (especially after Haldane gives him his own boat back in return for a bottle of brandy) and declares his friendship with him.
• Greek Chorus: The Major fulfils this role.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The main reason for Mateos's hatred of Haldane (which drives much of the plot) is Annika's attraction to the latter; it's clear from his introduction that Mateos has known Annika for some time and harbours (unreciprocated) romantic feelings towards her.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Lorna, who comes to Crete hoping to get together with Alan, realises that he's in love with Annika and tells her this before returning to England. Wishing both of them the best for the future as she does.
• Hero of Another Story: The Major, a Reasonable Authority Figure who is policing a place torn between tradition and modernity, and as such only shows up in this story when there is an issue that involves the police.
• Humble Hero: Haldane does not mention his wartime exploits much, to the point where Elena and Nikos only find out that he was Leandros, a wartime hero whose deeds are still spoken of locally, from a fisherman who refuses to take money for the old caique because it's Leandros who wants to buy it, and he would not dream of taking money from him. The novelisation takes this further with the detail about him keeping his bravery medal in the bottom of a drawer.
• I Choose to Stay: At the end of the first episode, Haldane (having learned of Elena's unhappiness) decides to stay in Crete indefinitely. He gets his estate agent brother to sell his house back in England, and moves into Babis's house in Elounda, near Elena's taverna.
• Internal Reveal: In the final episode, Annika finally learns the truth about Haldane. What she says makes it clear that she wishes to continue their relationship, and the show ends with a shot of the pair of them going sailing on his boat.
• Jerkass: Mateos, big time. Also Duncan Neve, who goes out of his way to be rude to people who are trying to help him.
• La Résistance: During the war, Haldane fought alongside the Andartes (the Greek resistance against German occupation) on Crete for three years. Babis was one of the men he fought with, and Melina was involved in the resistance too.
• Liar Revealed: William Hebden publicly and tearfully confesses that he made up his stories about fighting with the Cretan resistance when confronted by an elderly peasant who wants to kill him over a wartime feud. The sergeant in charge of Hebden's unit had betrayed a resistance cell to the Germans in return for being allowed to go free; the Germans subsequently massacred everyone in the village that that cell was from, including the peasant's son. By claiming to have been the sergeant in charge of his unit at the time as opposed to one of the lower-ranking wounded who was barely conscious at the time (which is what he actually was), Hebden had unknowingly opened himself up to being charged with betraying a Greek village to the Germans.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Averted; at one point, it looks as though Haldane is going to tell Elena this, but he declines. He never gets another chance, as she dies not long afterwards.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Mateos invokes this by cutting the brake cables on Haldane's car.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Elena grew up believing her father to be the Greek man her mother married after the war. She dies before he can learn that her father is actually Alan Haldane, alias Leandros, the English war veteran who comes to Crete and befriends her and her family.
• Man Hug: When Haldane meets Babis, he offers one of these but it is declined. After it is made clear that Haldane had not intentionally abandoned Melina, Babis offers one, which is gratefully accepted.
• Meaningful Look: Haldane and Annika, who are attracted to each other from the moment they meet, exchange plenty of these before they become an Official Couple in the fifth episode.
• Meaningful Name: Haldane calls the boat he restores The Knot, because it's one of the things that binds him to Crete. Which makes Mateos setting fire to it all the more symbolic, as he wants Haldane gone. Elena's proposal to rename the taverna in honour of her late mother is also this, although she does not seem to notice that Haldane is visibly moved by it, and she dies before she can find out why this is so.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Petros (Annika's brother) in introduced as an antagonist who will do Katerina's bidding and drive Haldane out of Crete, in addition to which, she wants him to endure that the Viglis funeral does not go ahead due to an old family feud. He actually turns out to be one of these as he has no interest in driving Haldane away, and he stops being any sort of antagonist when he publicly backs Annika in denouncing the feud against the Viglis family.
• Mirror Character: In the second episode, William Hebden to Haldane. In contrast to Haldane, who dresses casually and doesn't talk much about his wartime exploits, Hebden is rarely seen without his regimental tie and blazer, and talks of little else. Even before he is revealed to have greatly exaggerated his service, it can be inferred from their interactions that Haldane does not believe much of what he says.
• The Missus and the Ex. Played with in the case of Annika and Lorna, as Haldane and Annika are not in a relationship at that point. Despite the initial hostility, the two women actually get on rather well, although they both realise they can never be friends because, as Lorna puts it, "you have what I want".
• Mood Whiplash: Plenty of these.
  • When Annika takes Haldane to visit the village of Dhafnai, the mood changes from friendly to hostile the moment Tony Viglis shows up. It's not long before it gets violent.
  • The party atmosphere after the race in the fifth episode turns sour when it's revealed that Haldane's caique is on fire. His subsequent despair turns to happiness the following morning when Xenophon and others arrive with building materials to help him rebuild it.
  • The happy atmosphere between Haldane, Annika, Elena, Nikos and Alexis in the seventh episode turns to tragedy when Elena, Nikos and Alexis are killed in a car crash on the way home.
  • As a result of the above, the eighth and final episode has a very different tone to the others.
• Ms. Fanservice: Annika gets a bikini scene, and is later shown wearing a backless dress, in the seventh episode.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Haldane is a low-key example. Early on, it is stated that he and his wife Ruth did not have children. This is later changed when he tells Annika that they had a boy, who died when he was still a baby. Haldane says that he did not really mourn the child as he barely had time to know him; presumably he threw himself into his work as a coping mechanism.
• Murder by Mistake: By sabotaging the brakes on Haldane's car, Mateos is clearly intending to kill him. However, he ends up being responsible for the deaths of Elena, Nikos and Alexis when Haldane lends them his car.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Katerina has this reaction on learning that Mateos's attempt to kill Haldane, which she ordered, had in fact resulted in the deaths of Elena, Nikos and Alexis.
• My Local: In Elounda, Elena's taverna is popular with locals and tourists alike.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Haldane appears to be going for a male version of this with some of his shirts, which are at times unbuttoned almost down to his navel. A few of the other men, notably Nikos and Babis when they are not wearing suits, also tend to go for this look, which is probably justified by the 1970s setting.
• Nice Guy: Stelios, who married Melina when she was pregnant with Elena but died a few years later. The few people who know of the situation believe he did the honourable thing (saving both mother and daughter from the stigma of illegitimacy), while anyone else thinks (justifiably) that he was Elena's father. Either way, no-one has a bad word to say about him.
• Novelization: As was the case with some of his other shows, Michael J. Bird also wrote a tie-in novel which was published in 1977, the same year in which the series was broadcast.
• Oh, Crap!: The first episode ends with an understated one from Haldane when he runs into Annika at Elena's taverna and learns that they are aunt and niece. At the climax of the seventh episode, Elena, Nikos and Alexis all have this reaction when they realise that the brakes on the car they are travelling in don't work. On a mountain road with lots of tight corners. They die seconds later.
• One-Shot Character: William and Jo Hebden in the second episode, Tony Viglis in the fourth and Duncan Neve and Sam in the sixth.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Most of the Greeks are happy to just call Haldane "Leandros", his wartime nom de guerre. Whether they only do this because they find it hard to pronounce his surname is not stated.
• Outliving One's Offspring: When the show starts, Katerina has already outlived her daughter. By the end, she has also outlived her grand-daughter and great-grandson. Haldane also ends up outliving his daughter, who never learned that she was his daughter.
• Papa Wolf: Haldane develops shades of this after he befriends Elena, the daughter he never knew he had. After her death, he embraces this trope when he sets out to kill the man who killed her and her family.
• Phony Veteran: In the second episode, we encounter one of these. William Hebden actually was in Crete during the war, but he was wounded and saw no fighting prior to being evacuated to safety. However, with everyone else in his unit having been killed in action later in the war, he has spent the past three decades telling tall tales about how he led his unit to the evacuation point and fought alongside the resistance on the way, with no survivors to contradict him. His story unravels when he returns to Crete, upon which it turns out that the actual leader of his unit had betrayed a Greek village to the Germans in return for his own safety. After tearfully confessing the truth to the peasant who wants to kill him in revenge for the death of his son (who was one of the betrayed villagers), Hebden is last seen breaking down in public and losing the respect of his daughter Jo, who had believed him to be a hero.
• Posthumous Character: Melina, Haldane's wartime lover, died four years before the events of this series.
• Racist Grandma: Katerina, whose undying hatred of Haldane stems not so much from the fact that he got her daughter pregnant (which was bad enough, given her very traditional outlook on life) but from the fact that he's a foreigner. She deliberately ensured that none of Haldane's letters reached Melina, who therefore believed that he had abandoned her. She takes this even further with Annika, stating that she disliked her husband because he was from Athens, not Crete. Her disapproval of Petros has a lot to do with the fact that he has left Crete to work in Athens.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: The series ends with Elena, Nikos and Alexis dead, Katerina paralysed and Haldane badly injured. Further to that, Mateos and his brother killed a man while on the run before being killed themselves. Additionally, Annika learns that her lover is her niece's biological father — which Haldane had feared would end their relationship if she ever found out. Rather than reject Haldane, though, she makes it clear that she wishes to continue their relationship.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The Major comes across as this, especially in the eighth episode when he tells Babis that he will not tolerate an armed group of veteran Andartes going into the mountains to hunt down Mateos and his brother; however, if they were to act as law-abiding citizens and help the police to find them, that would be acceptable, provided they agree to do so under his (the Major's) authority. Babis, in his capacity as a lawyer, also counts as one of these.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Haldane gives a blistering one to Annika after she does nothing to stop the villagers from attacking Viglis on account of a feud that goes back decades. Ultimately, this causes her to reconsider her actions. In the final episode, Annika tops that by delivering a devastating one to her mother (who is by this point incapable of speech and so unable to respond after learning of the part she played in the deaths of Elena, Nikos and Alexis.
  Annika: You are a wicked, evil woman! A murderess! A stench in the nostrils of God! Remember that when you stand before Him!
• The Reveal: During the course of the first episode, Haldane finds out that Elena is his and Melina's daughter. At the end of that episode, he finds that Annika is Melina's younger sister (something viewers may have already guessed from Katerina's shocked reaction upon hearing his name spoken aloud).
• Ripped from the Headlines: When Haldane meets Babis, he comments that things cannot have been easy over the past few years. This series was made in 1977; Greece had been ruled by a military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974. The tie-in novel takes this further by mentioning that Babis was imprisoned and tortured by the regime after publicly speaking out against it.
  • At one point in the tie-in novel, conversation about the war refers to the Kriepe kidnapping ^note  dramatised by the film Ill Met By Moonlight , it being hinted that Haldane took part in this.
• Romantic False Lead: Lorna, who is tricked into thinking that Alan wants her to join him in Crete.
• Scenery Porn: Much of the show was filmed on location in Crete, particularly in an around Elounda on the northern coast of the island. Which looks stunning.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Duncan Neve is wanted for murdering his wife back in England, but it turns out that she had a terminal illness and he killed her with a drug overdose to end her suffering. On learning of this, Haldane is very reluctant to help Len Cooper and the Major arrest the man, first refusing to tell them where Neve is, and then going to warn him and even offering to help him hide somewhere even less conspicuous than the remote village where he lives. Neve refuses, declaring that he always knew that the law would eventually catch up with him.
• Secret-Keeper: Babis, who knows the truth about Elena's parentage but reluctantly respects Haldane's wish to not tell her. Although he was this before Haldane came along, as he's her godfather and always knew who her real father was, but never told her.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Further to the above, neither Babis nor Haldane knows that Katerina also knows this, even though she and Babis interact and talk of Elena and her family.
• Serious Business: This being Crete, blood feuds are treated thusly. As the Major explains to Haldane, the police are well aware that they go on and are powerless to stop them. If someone does get killed, it will be treated as murder and investigated accordingly, although most if not all of the witnesses will probably Be as Unhelpful as Possible.
• Sex as Rite-of-Passage: Downplayed in the case of Jo Hebden, who had hung into her virginity out of respect for her father. When he is revealed as a Phony Veteran, she immediately propositions the local who had previously come onto her and been resisted.
• Shipper on Deck. Katerina makes it clear that she would like to see Mateos marry Annika. Averted by the same character, who years ago intercepted Haldane's letters to Melina, ensuring that the two were unable to connect after the war.
  • Played straight by Elena, who is clearly delighted by the growing romance between Annika and Leandros.
• Shout-Out: References to Greek mythology abound.
  • The title is an allusion to Charon. When Mateos switches from trying to drive Haldane out of Crete to trying to kill him, he sends him a note with two coins. The note simply reads: "FOR CHARON".
  • The fresco in Katerina's house depicts the three Fates.
  • When Haldane meets Xenophon, the latter compares himself to Heracles (a.k.a. Hercules), only for Haldane to ask if Odysseus would be a more appropriate comparison, as he was well-known for his bragging. Haldane later ends up addressing the man as Heracles, who in turn declares that Haldane is Odysseus, and Annika is his Penelope.
  • Moving away from Greek mythology, the title of the second episode, "Some Talk of Alexander", is taken from the first line of "The British Grenadiers". This is the episode in which Haldane encounters William Hebden, an old soldier who talks rather a lot about his exploits.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Haldane and Melina, who were kept apart after the war by her mother, who intercepted his letters to her, making her think that he had abandoned her.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Katerina has lived her life by this trope and strongly disapproves of her daughter (Annika) and grand-daughter (Elena) running their own businesses. Changing attitudes towards the role of women are explored, as the fact that Elena owns the taverna is the main source of tension between her and Nikos, who was raised to believe in this trope but sometimes has difficulty accepting that reality has changed. Even so, Elena appears to be the one who does most of the cooking in the taverna.
• Stock Footage: Whenever anyone arrives on or leaves Crete, the same footage of an Olympic Airways jet landing at or taking off from Heraklion Airport is used.
• Tragedy: So very much — and as the Major points out, the final outcome of a tragedy can take many years to come about.
• Translation Convention: Although some (unsubtled) Greek is spoken, most of the conversations are in English. Even when two Greek characters are speaking with each other. It is mentioned that the likes of Babis, Elena and Annika speak English well. Haldane, on the other hand, can speak Greek, but not very well due to his not having been there since the war. His Greek improves as the show progresses.
• True Companions: Haldane and Babis, who fought alongside each other during the war. Their friendship is quickly rekindled when Haldane returns to Crete, after some initial reluctance by Babis as he (wrongly) thought that Haldane had intentionally abandoned Melina.
• Unseen No More: Lorna Matthews is briefly mentioned in the first episode as an acquaintance of Haldane's who is single and may be interested in being set up with him (he having been widowed for several years). She turns up in Crete in the third episode, having been duped into thinking that he wants a Relationship Upgrade (or rather, a re-upgrade given that it turns out they used to be in a relationship) but Haldane, by this point falling in love with Annika, isn't interested.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Plenty.
  • The biggest example is Katerina, who pushes Mateos to kill Haldane, resulting in the deaths of Elena, Nikos and Alexis. Going further back, by ensuring that Melina never received Haldane's letters back during the war, she's the one who kick-starts the whole story.
  • By inviting everyone to her house in the mountains for the deal-signing, Annika also counts as this, as Elena, Nikos and Alexis die on their way home.
  • And Haldane himself, who lends Nikos his car, not knowing that the brakes have been sabotaged.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Georgios, a mountain peasant, gets a very brief introduction before he is killed by Mateos and his brother, who have taken to the mountains after the deaths of Elena, Nikos and Alexis. It turns out that he had helped the Andartes during the war, which gives Babis the excuse he needs to get his gun and go after the men himself, he having previously promised Haldane that he would not do this.
• Wham Episode: The seventh one. Having failed to drive Haldane out of Crete, Mateos plots to kill him. To this end, he sabotages the brakes on Haldane's car. The episode ends with Haldane lending his car to Nikos, who then drives Elena and Alexis home in it. All three are killed when the brakes fail while they are driving on a steep mountain road. The beginning of the eighth episode also counts, as that is when Haldane and Annika find out that Elena, Nikos and Alexis are dead.
• Women Are Wiser: Annika is immediately attracted to Haldane, but politely declines his initial come-on, rationalising that it would only be a holiday fling when both of them, being emotionally broken in their own way (she by divorce, he by widowhood), actually need more than that. Things change once he decides to stay in Crete on a permanent basis.
  • Later, she realises that Haldane's fondness for Alexis is deeper than the fact that he thinks the boy is a good kid who's the son of a couple he has befriended. She puts this down to the fact that Haldane had no children himself; she only finds out that Alexis is actually Haldane's grandson after the boy and his parents are killed.
• You Can't Fight Fate: A running theme, what with this show being a modern take on Greek tragedy. The fact that Katrina (who started the whole story by keeping Haldane and Melina apart in the 1940s) has a fresco of the three Fates above her doorway is no coincidence.
  The Major: It is unfair, do you not think, Leandros? A cruel joke of the gods, perhaps. We can never shake ourselves free of what once was, for the past comes with us, like a shadow.