I actually believed, naïf that I am, that she was calling to offer her apologies for her disruptive conduct. Instead, she awkwardly solicited the mayor's contrition? Were I the self-same harried public official, I doubt I would have displayed such admirable good manners while conversing with her.

Conscience costs dear! (A paraphrase from one of my favourite tele-visual entertainments.)

Saints preserve us, that rarest of all creatures, now hunted near to extinction and found with greater rarity than the Fiji Mermaid… a gentleman! You are far too kind, sir.

Be ever on your guard for those who allow themselves sympathy for power, for it is from these that the worst excesses of tyranny are born.

It really was very bad of him not to surrender the whip. Still, the near-immediate application of a heaping plateful of his just desserts soothes one's outrage somewhat.

'Rights' is an admirable Freudian slip in this context. Allow me to commend your subconscious for its display of wit.

But there is still a spark of vitality and Human feeling in his eyes!

A man of principle might also be a man of very bad principle, sad to say. Molina's character also seems to thrive on chaos. There is something uncanny about this sort of gentleman.

The true villains, as always, are the avarice and fear omnipresent in Human nature.

It is ambitious indeed to attempt an adaptation of the Great Detective. Have you chanced to observe the Granada productions? They are well worth a look. And if you are hungry for different but still worthy depictions of fictional detectives, might I recommend to you the televisual presentations of Nero Wolfe from…

Absolutely the finest adaptations I have seen, with 'The Musgrave Ritual' and 'The Six Napoleons' being particular favourites. I will always keep an abiding fondness for dear Basil Rathbone (for all that he was a colonial), and I have heard very good things from fellow enthusiasts regarding the Russian adaptations…

By the regal monarchs of Albion, this poor creature has collapsed unconscious, felled by the intensity of their own fevered imaginings! Whatever does one do in such a situation? Quickly, someone pour spirit of hartshorn down their throat!

A 'D-' is in some ways far worse than an 'F'. The latter at least is in impressive in its purity as a complete failure. The 'D-', by comparison, is a broken, crawling thing, its torso heaving and contorting as it struggles to draw in air, unaware that it is, for all intents and purposes, already dead.

They could re-use the same actors each week in different roles, bring in guest writers and directors, and make a true playhouse of the macabre out of it! This would play well into the knowing humour of the source material.

If only their efforts had been marginally more wretched.

(Shudders)

May I be so bold as to offer a suggestion? Here then: muster the resources that might have been squandered on this unpromising production and instead direct them towards 'the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', 'Nero Wolfe Mysteries', 'Columbo', 'Masterpiece Theatre'… all worthy examples of classic televisual…

As it struggles to attain sentience, the poor thing desperately attempts to communicate as much as the parameters of its mandated exposition allows. I fear this is an attempt at insouciant wit in the manner popularised among commenters on this site… at once wretched and pitiable, but also representing an attempt at…

There is a term in my era for a two-wheeled horse or pony carriage.
It is a 'trap'.

The term would translate into 'one who kisses meat', from the Spanish, I believe.