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Season guide

Play for Today: Series 14

21 episodes Premiered Oct 24, 1983 Updated Sep 25, 2026
Previously on Play for Today

Season 14 Lore Primer

Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.

  • ⚡ Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of Play for Today Season 13.
  • ⚡ Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
  • ⚡ Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
  • ⚡ Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
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Season 14 Episodes

Episode Guide

🛡️ SPOILER SHIELD

Season 14 Progress Shield

Future titles & synopses blurred. Tap "Reveal" on any card to peek.
Binge Efficiency Engine

Season 14: Filler vs. Essential Canon

Filter episodes by narrative weight. Focus on essential mytharc and skip standalone side quests.

19%
81%
Mytharc (4): Crucial lore & season climaxes
Core (17): Character development & subplots
Side Quest (0): Standalone / filler
S14·E1 Mytharc

Stan's Last Game

Oct 25, 1983 · 75 min

James Grout and Bert Parnaby are rival chairmen of a northern football club in the run-up to an important cup match. As tempers fray, retiring president Charles Lamb provides a cal

S14·E2 Mytharc

Young Shoulders

Feb 14, 1984 · 75 min

Cynical teenager Andrew Groves re-evaluates his attitude to life and his parents after his sister dies in a plane crash.

S14·E3 Core

A Coming to Terms for Billy

Feb 21, 1984 · 75 min

When his father comes home to Belfast after more than 2 years in England, conflicts arise with Billy

S14·E4 Core

Z for Zachariah

Feb 28, 1984 · 75 min

After a nuclear holocaust, only a man and a woman survive in a Welsh valley.

S14·E5 Core

Moving on the Edge

Mar 6, 1984 · 75 min

A woman in a state of personal crisis finds it hard to communicate with her husband and family.

S14·E6 Core

Desert of Lies

Mar 13, 1984 · 75 min

An expedition tracing the path of long-lost missionaries meets with tragedy in the Kalahari Desert.

S14·E7 Core

Hard Feelings

Mar 20, 1984 · 75 min

A group of unemployed Oxford drop-outs living in a Brixton commune get their come-uppance by one of them.

S14·E8 Core

Under the Hammer

Mar 27, 1984 · 75 min

Concerning the life of the artist Vincent Van Gogh

S14·E9 Core

King

Apr 3, 1984 · 75 min

A man who has had a good life in England wants to retire to Jamaica, but the celebration with his daughters doesn't go as expected.

S14·E10 Core

Rainy Day Women

Apr 10, 1984 · 75 min

In 1940, during World War II, an officer is sent to investigate rumors of German spies in a sleepy village where various people are the victims of war hysteria

S14·E11 Core

Dog Ends

Jul 17, 1984 · 75 min

In a future society where euthansia is common, a man signs papers to have his father put down

S14·E12 Core

The Groundling and the Kite

Jul 24, 1984 · 75 min

Peter is a songwriter, while his old friend Jimmy is an A and R (Artists and Repertoire) man. But when Jimmy tries to sell one of Peter's songs, Peter is furious. Can the friendshi

S14·E13 Core

The Cry

Jul 31, 1984 · 75 min

In 1959 Ulster, a journalist witnesses the beating of a youth

S14·E14 Core

It Could Happen to Anybody

Aug 14, 1984 · 75 min

A long-suffering Glasgow housewife puts up with years of her husband's violence and drunkenness - and then something happens which makes her snap and fight back.

S14·E15 Core

Only Children

Aug 21, 1984 · 75 min

A young woman's comfortable life is turned upside down when she has a baby.

S14·E16 Core

The Amazing Miss Stella Estelle

Aug 28, 1984 · 75 min

Miss Stella Estelle is a cabaret singer in working men's clubs, and she sings songs from the 1960s to support a large and difficult family. But how long can it go on? The backdrop

S14·E17 Core

The Long March

Nov 20, 1984 · 90 min

A woman returns to Belfast after ten years in England and becomes involved in the Maze prison protest.

S14·E18 Core

Punters

Nov 27, 1984 · 75 min

What is the secret of Joey and Spansky's success at the races?

S14·E19 Core

Talk To Me

Dec 11, 1984 · 75 min

Matthew and his wife are deeply suspicious of psychoanalysis. It's not their sort of thing at all.

S14·E21 Mytharc

Brigadista

Feb 5, 1985 · 75 min

When best-selling author James Fuller Hayes comes to Glasgow to publicise his personal account of the Spanish Civil War, a surprise reunion with two of his old comrades from the In

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