In late-'80s Britain, Porterhouse College Cambridge is an anachronism, its students uniformly male and (in the vast number of cases) privately educated. When the incumbent Master dies (from a stroke brought on by overeating) the government revenges itself on Porterhouse by appointing as his successor an old graduate, the politician Sir Godber Evans. One of the tiny minority of state-school students the college has had forced on it over the years, Evans returns to his alma mater determined to drag this bastion of privilege into the twentieth century. The elderly academic staff cease their bickering and close ranks against him, but the new Master finds his most implacable and unscrupulous opponent in Skullion, the college porter.
Porterhouse Blue: Season 1, Episode 1 Episode #1.1 (3 Jun. 1987)
When the master of Porterhouse College, Cambridge dies of a Porterhouse blue, a stroke brought on by excessive living, having rejected all likely candidates to succeed him, the post passes to former Minister of Social Security Sir Godber Evans. This is not a popular choice with the staff, who are snobs, as former student Evans was a grammar school boy. Notably aghast is head porter Skullion, whose ancestors have worked at the college for over five hundred years and who resents the upstart and his pushy wife, Lady Mary. The new master is progressive, intent on overturning centuries old traditions and planning a new, unisex college, named after his wife. Earnest research student Lionel Zipser meets Lady Mary at a feminist lecture but this makes him late returning to college and he accidentally knocks Skullion unconscious climbing over the wall.
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