I Say Jean Luc, You Rock That Look!

I Refer, Of Course, To Dixon Hill
The private detective* as seen on various jaunts around the Holodeck.  Presumably when the scriptwriters were bitten by the whimsy weasel, and decided "I know!  let's have a noir detective story set in the 1950's!" only to be reminded by Gene Roddenberry that this was the 24th Century, they turned to The Lazy Scriptwriter's Second Best Friend - the Holodeck ( the The Lazy Scriptwriter's Best Friend is, of course, "Q").

Dixon Hill and some bloke who doesn't tan

     Does the Holodeck also conjure up clothes?  Or does the Replicator do that?  I suspect the latter, or you'd need an almost infinitely-large wardrobe to contain them all.

Welcome Back Princess Janice
However briefly, it's always a pleasure to have colleague Janice around.  She possesses an extremely large sense of humour, and it was nice to meet Harman the junior edition as well as Jacob the new arrival, and even Janice's mum.

Janice, absent tiara

     When Jacob started bawling in Yvonne's arms, grandma stepped in and quieted the howls within seconds, an impressive feat - very useful if travelling on public transport.

Saturday Morning Pester Puss
As any cat owner can testify, cats like to - even love to - be where they shouldn't.  Ours is no exception, usually emerging from her lair to creep up on Conrad as he reads his Important Books at breakfast, unerringly choosing the worst place to sit.

Like, right on top of the book.  Purring madly all the time

     Consumed with glee at her cleverness, she got moved, then came back again, apparently unable to take a hint.  At least she only lay on my hand, not the book this time.

"I have you, puny human!"

     Note hipster dad's CD of the Chemical Brothers in the background.

"Disodium 5 - Nucleotide"
I can tell what you're thinking here, "Conrad's found another hellish chemical compound."  Since I've been gloating about discovering the terrifying compound Ethylene Oxide, second only to that Touchstone of Terror Chlorine Triflouride, you might be forgiven that this is a seeding compound that turns silicone dioxide into the insanely unstable silicone tetraflouroethyl nitrate, which explodes if you even look at it.  Yes, even with your eyelids nearly shut.  This would be a bad thing as over a quarter of the Earth's crust is made of silicon.

Ha!  Gotcha!

     Fortunately for all of us, it's merely an ingredient in potato snacks.

Poirot - The Adventure of the Cheap Flat
A bit of a let-down if you were hoping to see Poirot exercising his little grey cells, as a lot of the detective work was telegraphed well in advance.  Despite that it looked good, especially the delightfully delicious Samantha Bond.  A mention goes out also to the actor Nick Maloney, playing the wonderfully sleazy night club owner, and William Hootkins, the pompous FBI agent on secondment to an ever-more harassed Chief Inspector Japp.
     I say, though, the background music at times seemed to be a bit of a jazzy riff on the "UFO" theme tune.  Not complaining, you understand, only commenting.
     What follows is a bit obsessive, so if you're not into analysing what's on-screen and why, you may repair to the bar for a swift gin and tonic.
     Voila:

Urban elegance in 1935

     This may well be a set constructed specifically for the programme.  It looks, to Conrad's artistic eye, hideous.  The bowler-hatted gent above is the estate agent, who praises this eyesore to the heavens.
     We also get a brief flashback to America, which has to be evoked on a budget; at this point the series hadn't done any trans-Atlantic filming** and the studio wouldn't have listened to the director saying "But for authenticity ..."

I shan't enlarge as it would spoil the illusion

     I also noticed a particularly important credit in the end titles: "Location Manager - Dennis Firmington".  I shall cheat here and allow Wiki to inform you about what this job entails:  

1. "The location manager is a member of the film crew responsible for the finding and securing locations to be used, obtaining all needed fire, police and other governmental permits, and coordinating the logistics involved for the production to successfully complete its necessary work."

     This is difficult enough for a contemporary production, but Dennis has to find locations that look authentically 1935, such as this:

A nice facade

     - in addition to stopping pedestrians and traffic wandering or driving into shot. Since it's at night he wouldn't have to worry about jet aircraft being visible, one less thing!

What Baked Goods Are The Favourites Of The Northern Illinois Computer Exchange?
It goes without saying -

* We'll be revisiting this topic
** I don't know if it ever did