Season 2 of Dick Turpin continues the light, family-friendly adventures we saw in season one. It continues to portray Turpin according to the romanticised tales that turned him into a popular folk hero. He's loyal to his friends, compassionate to the poor, and even when they have to acknowledge that he's a highwayman; i.e. someone who commits armed robbery for a living; his victims are always pompous, corrupt, or both. Usually both. Overall it's very much more of the same, with familiar plots driven more by the charm of lead than by any particular quality of the writing.
There are two main innovations of this (short, seven episode) season compared to the first, though. First, it relies far less heavily on the recurring antagonists Spiker and Glutton (though they return late in the season). Second, it has one two-part storyline, a double-header that would probably have been better placed as the season finale than its opener, since it feels a bit more ambitious than all the one-and-done episodes that make up the rest of the run.
Organisation of the episodes was an issue in the first season two, and it is not only in the placement of the two-parter that season two's arrangements seem odd. Episode six sees Turpin thoroughly trash Spiker's reputation, and yet in the next episode old Spikey is back in his regular role with no more said about it. I know the show was produced a long time ago, when TV shows were often locked in an eternal status quo, but you'd think they'd spend at least five minutes sorting this stuff out when compiling a DVD release.
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