Released by Acorn Media on September 25th 2012. SRP $59.99 (DVD)
In the 1970s, there was a real push for UK broadcasters to
try and create series that could be sold overseas to the US market. Generally,
a very traditional way of making television in the UK would be to shoot the
interiors of a series on videotape in a studio while the exteriors would be
shot on film or possibly in some cases on videotape. There are people out there
who do not like that look though I am personally am a big of fan of it. The
problem comes from that with the interiors and exteriors shot on 2 different
mediums, to some it looks jarring. Others believed that anything shot on
videotape looks cheap. I feel like I need to jump in again and say I don’t agree
with that. To take a skewed look at a classic analogy, it’s not what type of
paper the book is printed on but what is inside it. A little abstract?
Possibly! There is a history of series that changed their look to appeal to the
US market. One of them was The Avengers.
For its fourth series, production moved from a videotaped produced series to a
film series to try and get interest from the states. Special Branch took it one step further….
DVD Content:On September 25th Acorn Media will be releasing Special Branch Set 1. This will be covering the first 13 episodes that starred George Sewell as DCI Alan Craven and Patrick Mower as DCI Tom Haggerty. The title “Set 1” is a bit of a misnomer. The episodes on this set cover episodes that ran in 1973. As it happens, this is actually Series 3. Special Branch started in 1969 as a Thames television series. It started off in black and white shot on videotape. It was made mostly in studio with exteriors being shot on film and then videotape. The series starred Darren Nesbitt as DCI Jordan. Special Branch took a hiatus after the 1970 series and got re-tooled. The revamped Special Branch became the first production of the Thames subsidiary Euston Films. Started by Lloyd Shirley, George Taylor, and Brian Tesler, they decide on an approach to a new style of making television for the UK and hoped to sell it abroad. First, they dropped the videotaped approach. All the series would be shot on film and on location. This meant no studios at all. If they needed to shoot something in a flat, they would shoot it in a flat. Another big change would be that each series would have 2 film crews working simultaneously on an episode. Once again, they could get through production quicker. When watching episodes on this DVD set, when Haggerty is in the series, it is obvious that these two film crews are at work. There is a large part of these episodes where Craven and Haggerty are doing separate parts of the same investigation, I am sure these were being shot simultaneously or it could be a simple as a B crew going around taking pick up shots. If Euston Films sound familiar to you, other programs they made were Van Der Valk, The Sweeney (which also included 2 feature films), Reilly: Ace of Spies and Quatermass.
We are introduced to Craven in the first episode, A Copper Called Craven. It is a strange way
to introduce a character as we hardly know him but he is immediately charged
with accepting a bribe. The whole episode revolves around him trying to prove
his innocence. We are not introduced to Haggerty until the second episode, Round the Clock. Haggerty is
interesting. He is not in all the episodes but when he is, he makes the program
better. Craven is a some-what gritty officer but follows procedures pretty well
and is able to get the information he needs. Haggerty does that but there is something
a little more loose-cannon about him. In some ways, he is more human. In Death
by Drowning, the husband of an important MP is found dead in the Thames. It’s
a Sunday; Craven and Haggerty need to start the investigation now. Craven is
ready to start but Haggerty is having trouble getting going. He is horribly
hung over. It makes him a little more realistic. About half the episodes do not
feature Haggerty in them. When the series returned in 1973 with the new
character of Craven but also starred Roger Rowland as Detective Sgt. Bill
North. Now, Roger Rowland did appear in an episode of Special Branch from 1969 called Troika
but not as Bill North but as DCI Felding. Not the same character. The problem with Bill North is that he is a subordinate
who does what Craven needs. The people making the series were concerned that it
was lacking punch from its characters and brought in Patrick Mower as Haggerty.
Haggerty and Craven often lock horns and disagree. Patrick Mower was brought in
when six episodes had already been shot. So they shot the remaining seven with
him and sprinkled them into the series so it looks like Haggerty is basically
there throughout the third series. There
are also times when they get along really well. To give the series some depth,
it made sense to put them together in the series. George Sewell and Patrick
Mower play the part really well together.
With the series being shot on location, there are all sorts
of interesting things to see. The series was shot in London. For people who
love British television series like Lovejoy
and Midsomer Murders where there is
glorious country-side and quaint villages or even like Sherlock which shows London as a sophisticated and beautiful place
may be disappointed with the locations. This is a series about anti-terrorism and
crime. A lot of the action takes place in areas that are less than perfect. Let’s
face it, it is gritty and bleak. There are a lot of rundown buildings. The
episode Red Herring has some very
ghetto-esque places. Even though the quality of the episodes is fine, the
colour palette for much of these episodes are pale. A lot of greys. There doesn’t
seem to be a lot of sunny days. Of course, these episodes were made before
everything would be colour graded in post-production. Now, if you shoot on a
cloudy day there are ways to make it look better weather-wise than what it was
on the day the scenes were shot. No in these episodes!
While watching this set, I was thinking about how people
want to make television series more real. Often the response to this is to make
something grittier. Maybe more blood, maybe when someone hits someone else the
sound is more violent. I think Special
Branch comes across much more realistic but in a different way. There is a
ton of shots with us, the viewer, in the car driving around with Craven and
North. We are driving with them as if we are in the backseat and they are in
the front. There is rarely any incidental music but just the sounds of people
doing their jobs. Like in Red Herring,
Police need to clear the street because of bomb that is in a parked car. Just
the sounds of all the vehicles and people doing their jobs running around to make
people safe makes the series very believable. The down side to this could be
that some of this takes a while to unfold. Sometimes it doesn’t happen very
quickly. The pacing can sometimes be a little slow but I found when Haggerty is
in the series, that isn’t the case.
As soon as Haggerty is in an episode, an officer at the same
level as Craven can do some investigations. The plot becomes much more complex.
There are a couple of things going on in Death
by Drowning, the story is not so straight forward in regards to the death
of the husband of an MP. The investigation takes two separate directions where
Haggerty and Craven need to figure out what they need to do. Whereas episodes
like Red Herring, Polonaise or even a Copper Called Craven seem to have one strong plot that we
eventually come to an end with at the finale of the episode. Sometimes, such as
Polonaise, the resolution of the
episodes can seem a little flat. We take all the time to get here and when we
do, I am sometimes left scratching my head thinking, “Is that it?” Once again
the episodes that have Haggerty in them seemed to breathe fresh life into them
and since those episodes were sprinkled throughout the broadcast order of
episodes, it doesn’t bother me at all.As a big fan of British television, there were a lot of faces I saw that I recognized from other programs and were glad to see them like Tony Selby, Peter Jeffrey, Clifford Rose, Angus MacKay, Andre Morell, Richard Marner, Norman Jones, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Dennis Chinnery, Geoffrey Bayldon, James Bree, Stephanie Beacham, Michael Gambon, Mark Eden, and Ronald Leigh-Hunt. If you do not know who these people are, they have appeared in everything from ‘Allo ‘Allo, Only Fools and Horses, Quatermass and the Pit, Doctor Who and so much more.
 |
| Andre Morell also appeared as Bernard Quatermass in Quatermass and the Pit |
Extras:
There is one extra on here but it is a pretty cool one. It
is an interview with both Patrick Mower and George Sewell. They are done
separate to each other but it is really informative. They both speak fondly of
the series and each other but I was really impressed by how much they knew of
the history of Special Branch. They
knew about how much revamping was needed and why the formation of Euston was so
important. I know they were there at the time but sometimes you just don’t get
as informative of interviews. It is a real highlight of the set. It looks like
it was imported over from the UK set distributed by Network DVD. I can only say
that when Acorn Media is able to bring stuff over from Network DVD, everyone
wins. I have quite a few of Network releases and they are impeccable with
quality and depths they go through with extras. One of the highlights in my
collection from Network is the Upstairs
Downstairs collection and they extras on these are breathe-taking. I
believe some of those extras showed up on the recently released Upstairs Downstairs sets by Acorn
Media. What I also like about this extra is that we get a clip from a black and
white episode of Special Branch. I
love the look of black and white British television and when I saw it I was immediately
reminded of an episode of the not seen in the US series Public Eye. Both produced by Thames Television. What is also nice
about this extra is just seeing an interview with George Sewell, this extra was
produced in 2004 and George passed away in 2007. These types of extras start to
become precious. |
| A shot from the 1969 version of Special Branch in the Sewell/Mower interview extra. |
Quality:
Seeing as the extra was ported over from the Network release
I have no reason to believe that these are the same episodes used as was used
in the UK release. Each episode starts out with the Fremantle logo and jingle
which I am not a huge fan of since they have been recently added to the
episodes but seeing that they own the series, there really is nothing anyone
can do about it. More importantly, the Thames opening is left intact. You know
what I am talking about especially if you ever saw Benny Hill or Danger Mouse.
It looks like the ad caps were missing and I am not sure if they are present on
the Network release. I really am a purist and like the ad caps. That’s the bit
that shows the logo of the series just as it goes into commercials. It would
also normally say “End of Part One”, etc. The quality of the prints used for
this release look fine to me. They are not perfect nor would I say remastered.
They look to me (and I could be wrong) that they are new prints made of the
episodes since they look pretty good condition but no remastering or clean-up
has been done to the prints at all. I’m fine with that. They look great and
there are some scratches to the prints here and there but the colour looks
strong and consistent throughout the episodes even if the look of the overall
series has a bleakness to it. 
Packaging:
The set comes in a standard size Amary DVD case that holds
four discs. It also has a sleeve that goes over the case. You certainly couldn’t
mistake this DVD with anything else as it is a bold yellow, red, and black
cover with Haggerty and Craven in a shot that makes them look like Starsky and Hutch. It says on the cover
“Classic British Spy Drama” and I am not totally sure I agree with this. I
would hold such distinction for a series like The Sandbaggers but what I like about this series is the
anti-terrorism piece to it. There are some international moments but these guys
are police and investigators more so than spies.
Disc Breakdown:
Disc 1: A Copper Called Craven, Round the Clock, Inquisition, AssaultDisc 2: Polonaise, Red Herring, Death by Drowning
Disc 3: All the King’s Men, Threat, The Other Man
Disc 4: You Won’t Remember Me, Hostage, Blueprint for Murder; Interview with George Sewell and Patrick Mower (17 minutes).
This week: In a
day or so I will post my review for the new Midsomer Murders set Mayhem and Mystery Files and this weekend will
be my first article for the Bond @ 50 celebration with Dr. No.
Have a great week!Also please subscribe to my From the Archive: British Television Blog Facebook Page for updates about new articles.
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