What's on TV - 24 - 30 August 2002
Double jeopardy
Frank Mooney faces the prospects of fatherhood - twice over
Frank Mooney has been playing with fire ever since he joined Blue Watch. As well as sleeping with colleague Sally Fields, the new boy has also been having an affair with station boss Mick Callaghan's wife, Shauna.
Now, in the last episode of this series, it seems Mooney's tricks have caught up with him - when both his lovers reveal they are pregnant.
'This is probably not how Frank imagined things turning out when he first joined Blue Watch,' says Tristan Gemmill, the actor who plays him.
'Frank likes to think he's a smoothie when it comes to the opposite sex. He prides himself on being able to manipulate people. But this situation is threatening to spiral out of control.'
Tristan, 35, who joined the series in July, had only seen the show in recent years. 'My dad got a job in Australia when I was 15 and I stayed for 10 years,' he explains.
'Growing up, my favourite show was The Sweeney. Maybe the dodgy geezers in that gave me an insight into Frank Mooney.'
Tristan's own love life is much less complicated. Last year, he married actress Emily Hamilton, who plays senior house officer Saskia Walker in the ITV1 medical drama A&E.
The pair met on the set of ITV mini - series Nancherrow four years ago, and married last September.
'I proposed to Emily on a Sicilian island,' he reveals. 'We were by a jetty and it started to rain. There was something very romantic about it all.'
Tristan's marriage status doesn't stop him getting saucy fan mail. Being a TV pin - up isn't his goal - but, he says, 'it would be nice if the role gets me noticed enough to lead to other work.
'Mind you,' he adds, 'Emily does think I look sexy in my firefighter's uniform. So far I've not been allowed to take it home, though perhaps I might come to some sort of arrangement with the show's producers over that!'
