DVD Review: Lovejoy Series 6

Lovejoy Series 6
DVD 3-Disc Set  (approx. 500 minutes)
Released by Acorn Media on June 16, 2015. SRP $49.99
Subtitles: English SDH 4:3

I have stated on a few occasions how much of a fan I am of the BBC series Lovejoy. Remember that loveable rogue who works in the antique business. Perhaps once in a while, he dips in the underground world of dirty dealing but generally he is on the up and up with a big heart of gold. He’s a divvy which means he can instinctively know if a piece is legit and if it is worth money.

As I profess my love for this series, there is one thing I need to disclose. I had never seen the final series of Lovejoy. By the time we get to the final series, which is Series 6 and what this review is about, I felt that the series had changed enough where some of my favorite characters were gone and I lost interest in the series. That was 20 years ago.

As I had been making my way through the Lovejoy series, I decided I would give the final series a chance. When I saw this was coming out from Acorn Media, I wanted to see what I missed. I think what I was most concerned about was the thought of the fun witty writing that was mixed in with some fairly serious situations for our favorite antiques dealer made me uninterested in watching any further.

When I sat down to watch Series 6, the thing I noticed was that we have different writers than before but I feel the character of Lovejoy is tweaked. What I personally see as the series progressed over the years was how Ian McShane (Lovejoy) had gotten himself in better shape over time. Now, I have no problem with anyone who wants to get themselves in better shape and that is not a reason to not like a series but it felt to me that Lovejoy was becoming a bit of an action hero opposed to an accidental hero which I found so charming. There is a scene in the Series 6 episode Breaking the Broker where Lovejoy needs to steal back a painting belonging to Tinker. Lovejoy needs to basically jump over fences and climb up walls of a house to steal it back. He does it so effortlessly he almost looks like Spiderman. Lovejoy is not Spiderman.

By this point in the series, Lady Jane Felsham had left the series. As I said in my review of Series 3, she may have been one of the most patient people in history based on how many times she needed to bail Lovejoy out of some problem. She is replaced for lack of a better term by Charlotte Cavendish. Charlotte and Lovejoy do have a “thing” going but she can be easily exasperated by Lovejoy. She’s not afraid to tell him to push off. I think the bigger hole in the cast was when Eric Catchpole left the series. He was sort of our conduit of comedy into the series. That was the starting point of the series when Lovejoy was paid by Eric’s father so Lovejoy could show Eric how to be an antiques dealer since Eric had absolutely nothing else going on in his life. Eric was replaced by Beth. Although not as funny, it was a wise move by the producers of this series was to not make Beth comedy relief. Eric was often what caused some of the problems in the series for Lovejoy and Tinker. Beth was not. She was actually competent which is wise but just not as funny. Now, since is the first time I have seen Series 6, did I like it?

Of course I did. It is Ian McShane playing Lovejoy. To me, it is new episodes of Ian McShane playing Lovejoy since I haven’t seen these before now. I actually thought when I started to dig into this set that some of the storylines would look familiar to me but it was all actually new. I never caught these on A&E during its original run or repeats.  I don’t like Series 6 nearly as much as Lovejoy in its heyday but no series maintains the same quality throughout. I think the series has Lovejoy too confident and less frantic. It’s funny I say that because the blurb that Acorn provides for the series says, “Ian McShane's raffish antiques dealer may have finally found some professional and personal stability.” I think that is the problem I am having with this period of the series. Maybe I don’t like Lovejoy to have stability. I like the more rogue sort of character from the earlier episodes. He is just scraping to get by and needs to find ways (some not so legal) to survive. I also thought that some of these episodes took themselves a little too seriously. Episodes such as Day of Reckoning sees an old enemy of Lovejoy’s (played by John Castle) kidnap Charlotte in a plot to kill her just to hurt Lovejoy for revenge. This episode does not fit in with what I think Lovejoy was about. Obviously that is a personal observation yet I do feel this episode is not right. Another one I feel this way about is the one I mentioned above which was Breaking the Broker. I don’t dislike this episode because Lovejoy can easily scale walls. I think it’s worse than that.

This episode sees Tinker set up Lovejoy, yes I said Tinker, to steal back a painting he sold to another dealer. Lovejoy is then caught by the Police and is forced to help them. Tinker was in on this too.  I’m sorry, I just don’t buy for a minute that Tinker would do this to Lovejoy. It actually sort of depressed me. That just wasn’t right. There was a point where Lovejoy told Tinker to never speak to him again. The mood does lighten up on this episode but it just still isn’t right.
Do I like any of the episodes?  Absolutely! I really like Fruit of the Desert as this is one of those classic episodes of Lovejoy where he is looking to make a ton of money from a deal, working with other parties (robbing Peter to pay Paul) to secure funding only to find once he has the money and paid for the goods, he has been scammed! Now he needs to figure out how to find a way to make good on the other promises. To me, that is a good episode of Lovejoy. I don’t think the series should be confused with what it is, it should stay true to itself.

A real treat for me on this set was taking a look at the final episode of Lovejoy, Last Tango in Lavenham. I had never seen it before and it even got the original writers back to write the episode, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. It is a nice combination of closure and sweet reminiscing which also brings Lady Jane back into the storyline along with a little cameo with Eric at the end. It is a satisfying ending to a series I cared a great deal about while growing up.

As keen as I am about British television, there are some great performances from some wonderful actors found in episodes on this set: John Castle, David Ryall, Richard Vernon, Dinsdale Landen, Julian Glover, Julia Sawalha, Richard Marner, Martin Jarvis, Gary Waldhorn, Terence Rigby, Christopher Benjamin, Gavin Richards, Donald Pickering, Earl Cameron, and Brian Croucher.

Quality:

The quality on this is the same on the other sets which is simply OK looking quality. The film footage didn’t look that great on original broadcast. As I have stated previous times, this would look amazing restored in HD but there isn’t much luck of that happening. I still contend that the BBC Home Entertainment release of this series on DVD looks a little bit better, this is still watchable. It evens says on the packaging due to the age of the program, it may not look great. I have always heard is that due to the way the series was post-produced back in the 1990s is why it is not that stellar looking. It’s not the fault of Acorn. These masters would have been passed along by Fremantle.

Extras:

There are no extras on this set. There were some extras on the BBC set but it needs to be understood from a consumer standpoint that if a studio buys a series to put out on home media that was previously released by another studio, they are generally only buying the right to the series and not to the extras that may have been previously produced. It’s important to understand. On the BBC Home Entertainment set that is now out of print, they include an excerpt from a BBC program that Ian McShane did at the time of the series on the air and also a newly recorded interview. That’s not easy to get. Once again, I don’t fault Acorn for not having any extras on any of these releases. Always to me, the important thing is to get the episodes in the best quality generally as originally seen.

DVD Breakdown:

Disc 1: Fair Exchange, Day of Reckoning, Somewhere: Over the Rainbow, Double Edged Sword
Disc 2: Guns and Roses, The Last of the Uzkoks, Breaking the Broker
Disc 3: Fruit of the Desert, Holding the Baby, Last Tango and Lavenham

It also should be pointed out on the same day as Series 6 being released, Lovejoy: The Complete Collection got a release. This is a 21-disc box set that includes all 6 series. The SRP on it is $199 but I have seen it on Amazon for as low as $117. This is a really good deal for a very good series. As a box set, this is a Highly Recommended purchase.

As for Series 6 of Lovejoy, if you have been a fan of the series and you want to see where it goes and how it ends I would consider this a Recommended purchase. If you are new to the series, do not start here. The series is not at its best at this point. In my opinion you could start anywhere between Series 1-4 and find it highly enjoyable. If you plan on grabbing a few series at once to try out, I would recommend the entire series boxset or there is also AcornTV which is currently (at the time of this review published) streaming the whole series. Lovejoy as a series is too good to be missed.

Next week: Not British television but British film and damn good British film. I am going to look at the film A Hard Day’s Night starring The Beatles! In the article, I will make a startling admission!

Have a great week!

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A Not Very Christmassy Lovejoy Christmas Special

As we move on with more Christmas episodes of our favourite series, you will probably notice a distinct lack of any Christmas at all in today’s article. This is one of those moments when a series has time allotted on the schedule during the Christmas season for a “special” episode but this time it has nothing to do with Christmas. I suspect this would not happen now-a-days. Look at all the Doctor Who Christmas specials since 2005. Every one of them has a connection with Christmas in some way. I can see how this can work in either direction but I suppose the thought now is if there is time for a program to be shown at Christmas, it had better damn well have Christmas material in it! Perhaps back in 1995 things were different.

There was a time in my life that I looked forward to Mondays. Let’s be honest, very few people look forward to Mondays and so I will be more precise, I looked forward to Monday evenings. In the early 1990s I was in high school and we had cable television. There was this cable station known as A&E. Back then it stood for Arts & Entertainment. I have no idea what it stands for these days; I don’t really care. To me, there was something really special about A&E and what was really unfortunate about it was that generally I took it for granted. I’ve written about it before, stations “evolving”. Back in the day, when a station ran a certain type of program, no one ever thought it would change. Why would it?

Monday nights were great. As odd as it sounds, I would finish my homework in time to watch Murphy Brown, I used to love that show. Most of the time, during working on homework, I would watch Biography on A&E. They were really well done. By 9pm, everything was set to watch one of my favourite series, Lovejoy. Lovejoy, to me, encapsulated what I thought British television should be: it was set out somewhere rural, was kind of high class (for me at the time) because it dealt in the (sometime seedy) world of art and had a set of characters that were funny but the situations weren’t always funny. Sometimes they could even be deadly serious.

Recently, I wrote a review about Series 3 of Lovejoy in which one of the blurbs from PR stuff I get with the discs called Lovejoy the “James Bond of the art world”. That sentence turned me off right away. The reason I had so much problem with it is that firstly, Lovejoy is nothing like James Bond and I still fail to see why the comparison was made. Secondly, I don’t think anyone can just label Lovejoy so easily. It is a wonderfully unique series that should never be summed up by calling it James Bond. So what is it?

Lovejoy was a series of novels written by Jonathan Gash (pen name) starting in 1977. Lovejoy (which is his last name) is not only an antiques dealer but at times a forgerer. What was most amazing about Lovejoy was the fact that he was a divvy. A divvy is someone who can sense when an antique is real and more importantly when it is worth something. It’s just an unreal feeling they get. This underground world of antique dealings is portrayed in a much more sinister light than what we see in the TV series. In fact so is Lovejoy.

We never know Lovejoy’s first name. He just prefers to go by Lovejoy and it fits. Lovejoy is actually a very loveable rogue. By the time we meet him in the series, he has mostly gotten out of the shady dealings. He would still dip back into it once and a while but he had mainly cleaned up his act and was surrounded by a good group of friends.

I loved watching this series because it was basically a drama with a lot of light humour brought into it. The locations were beautiful and the writing was sharp. Every week, we would be introduced to some antique treasure which had some amazing significance that we would learn about. Of course, these treasures (and their back stories)  weren’t real but they certainly fooled me. I had a ritual every Monday night and that included by the time Lovejoy would start, I would make myself a plate of chips and cheese, also known as nachos, and I would just enjoy the latest installment of the series. It was always so much fun because I would watch Lovejoy on TV from 9-10pm and the watch whatever British comedy series was running on my local PBS station KTCA from 10-11. Probably either Are You Being Served? or Keeping Up Appearances. This was a really fun and enjoyable time of my life.

By the time I got to 1993 things changed quite a bit for me. I graduated from high school and was about to start my first go round in college. I also ended up picking up a few jobs and most Monday nights I would be working. The feasting on Lovejoy would have to wait as I was too busy to keep up with it. When I did watch it, I noticed one of my least favourite things about a TV series that had gone on too long, cast changes. I will get to that in a bit. From what I had seen, it was becoming a show that I was losing interest in. Therefore, I had stopped watching from around Series 5. To this day, there are a few episodes I had not yet seen. In fact, this was the first time I had seen the episode we are looking at today.

The Lost Colony TX: 27/12/93

This non-Yuletide episode of Lovejoy starts with an estate sale. Lord Wakering needs to sell his Manor Home as well as many of its belongings. This is where Lovejoy comes in. He is helping Charlotte Cavendish with the sale. This is where my interaction with this series dwindled over time. I seemed to have fallen out of love with the series perhaps around the right time.

At the end of Universal Films in the 1930s, the screen would say “A good cast is worth repeating.” My take is that I think a good cast is impossible to replace. By the time we get into Series 5, we soon lose two great characters that I thought really made Lovejoy special. We lose Lady Jane who has been a close friend to Lovejoy and sometimes closer than just frends. She really was his rock. She helped him emotionally and financially. Then, there was Eric Catchpole played by Chris Jury. We meet Eric in the first episode, The Firefly Cage, as his father kind of pawns him off on Lovejoy to try and teach Eric in the ways of antiques dealings. Eric was a loveable buffoon. He was able to play off with well with Lovejoy and Tinker but the dynamics were different between the two. He was a great double act with Tinker and I think they could have easily made a spin-off between the two. With Eric leaving created a crater sized hole in the series. In fact, to be honest, it prejudices me when I watch any post-Eric Lovejoy. To put it in terms of antiques, it’s like finding a wonderful-old piece only to be ultra-cleaned by non-professionals removing all of its charm.

Back to the episode at hand, Lovejoy meets a woman who is into antiques of the period and is from America, in fact the South. Not only is she from America but she is also a Lovejoy. Her name is Mary-John Lovejoy and there are apparently a whole lot of Lovejoy’s living in North Carolina. They are also really well to do. While she is still in town, there is a robbery of some historically important pieces from Wakering’s house. These items have to do with Sir Walter Raleigh and the Lost Colony. The Lost Colony is an area off of North Carolina that Sir Walter Raleigh found that eventually lost. He called it the lost colony which it is Roanoke Island.

The one aspect of Lovejoy I have always loved was how we are exposed different pieces of antiques and the unique stories behind each piece. Not that many of these were real pieces or had real stories, the history of these mythical pieces were always fun and made the character of Lovejoy and Tinker very believable because they were such experts. These stories really sold the episodes.

Yet there is some truth to this story. Although this is not a physical piece, The Lost Colony was a real thing. The Queen granted Sir Water Raleigh a charter to colonize North America in 1583. Raleigh lands on what becomes Roanoke Island. The final group of colonists disappeared during the Anglo-Spanish War, three years after the last shipment of supplies from England. Their disappearance gave rise to the nickname "The Lost Colony". To this day there has been no conclusive evidence as to what happened to the colonists. Theories range from Native-Americans attacking and killing them to the colonists just moving somewhere else. In this episode, I got the impression that they are referring to the “lost colony” as a physical place. Like maybe they were looking for an island.

With the items stolen, Lovejoy feels a personal responsibility to get them back. He immediately knows who took them based on being at the house ate the time of the robbery. He recognized the unique perfume of Mary-John.  Lovejoy hops onto a plane a travels to North America to track down Mary-John. Let’s set the record straight. I hate it when British television series have episodes set in America. I hate it. Cue the stereotypical Americans and our lack of understanding anything that is not US. Don’t think for a moment I don’t think that as a culture the US can be very dim but I hate watching it because it generalize. Plus because it takes place in the South, we must have banjo music and the magazine the cop is reading is Guns & Ammo. I also hate US series that go over to the UK. Cue the stereotypical Britons. The only exception is The Beverly Hillbillies episode where the Clampetts go to the UK and Phil Silvers cons them into thinking that they are buying some amazing British treasures such as Buckingham Palace. In this episode we have the dim-witted southern cops, the Southerns with a ridiculous drawl and people commenting to Lovejoy that he sounds funny. Hilarity ensues.

It turns out that in North Carolina, there have been a long run of Lovejoys and they have built up a business. By the time it is all said and done, Lovejoy gets the historical pieces back. I give the impression that I didn’t like the episode. I didn’t mind it. It’s not that bad but if I started to watch Lovejoy with this episode, or any around this period of time, I wouldn’t have bothered with any more episodes. This episode is an example of how the series loses its energy and is just average. Lovejoy is not an average series.

When the series starts out, Lovejoy himself is a bit of a rogue. He cleans himself up a bit but always has some of the criminal charm. Lovejoy falls into the Mickey Mouse syndrome a little bit. Mickey Mouse starts out as a not so great character. He pulls on other animal tails, he nearly takes advantage of Minnie Mouse in a couple of those early shorts. Yet, as time goes on, he mellows and the characters that are around him take the center stage for being more colorful. As Mickey becomes more established, he is written to be more wholesome.

Can the same scenario be applied to Lovejoy? Maybe not the same extreme but as the series went on, he became more of an antique dealer expert instead of the rogue who needed to do the dodgy deals for the greater good. That was alright though because of such great characters as Eric and Tinker. Tinker needed Eric otherwise he becomes more of the odd man out. The characters in this installment don’t do much for me at all. There is Beth who takes on the role of Eric. She is learning the business but is not given much to do, at least in this episode. She is kind of a wasted character. There is Charlotte Cavendish who for all intents and purposes is the new Lady Jane. She is fine but it is hard to let go of the old favourites. Then, I breathed a sigh of relief.

In walks in Charlie Gimbert. Played beautifully by the late Malcolm Tierney, he is the Sheriff of Nottingham to Lovejoy’s Robin Hood. He is wonderfully villain in this series. He does nasty stuff to annoy and alienate Lovejoy but he is immensely loveable. I forgot he was still in the series by this point but even as brief as his appearance was, it still harked back memories to the good ol’ days!

What I am not a fan with this episode is that we see that there are more Lovejoys. There is a whole clan of them back in the states. I liked it when we didn’t know so much about Lovejoy. He is not necessarily a mysterious character, it’s just that there is some mystery to him. I don’t think the series should be about him in terms of his family. This is not a major aspect of it but one that is still unnecessary, perhaps getting too familiar. I am a fan of the paranormal aspect to this story. In Wakering’s house, there is a ghost that goes back a long way. She makes things very difficult for a lot of people, especially the new residents of the house. So much so that they move out and sell the house back to Wakering. The way it is done in the episode is a little far-fetched but then again, it’s not meant to scare the viewer.

Some interesting people took part in this episode that should be noted. First of all, Sir John Gielgud played Lord Wakering, Arthur Cox who also I also enjoyed as Cully in the Doctor Who story The Dominators. On the American side, there is Barbara Barrie who I found interesting. I have seen her in other things such as playing Barney’s wife Elizabeth on Barney Miller. She also played Elizabeth Potter in the Reggie which is the US version of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. That was made in 1983. I have always wanted to write an article about US comedies that originated from the UK. Once I get a copy of Beane’s of Boston, I’ll be able to do that.

Behind the scenes, the film was directed by Geoffrey Sax. He did a lot of things. I remember his episodes of The New Statesman and he was also the director to the 1996 TV Movie of Doctor Who starring Paul McGann. There are some really great shots in The Lost Colony such as near the beginning as we see Miss Lillian walking across the street into a cemetery and what appears to be a normal shot elevates as it becomes a really tall and ambitious crane shot. Some of that stuff is the highlight of the film. It is interesting to note that Jo Wright is Producer of Lovejoy by this point. She served as Executive Producer for the BBC on the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie and is currently an Executive Producer on Midsomer Murders. Clearly, she likes the same TV series I do.

If you want to start somewhere to watch Lovejoy, don’t start here. Start at the beginning and watch a very funny and unique show. This episode isn’t quite it.

Next week: What do M, Sergeant Wilson, and Magenta from The Rocky Horror Picture Show have in common? Find out when we look at the 1977 BBC production of A Christmas Carol. Not so much of the article will be about the plot but we will look at the practice of releasing good BBC productions other places than the UK!

Have a great week!

Do you have feedback, article requests or want to talk about a program but do not want to leave a public comment? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at FTA13867@gmail.com

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DVD Review: Lovejoy Series 3

Lovejoy Series 3 DVD - 4 Discs (693 min)
Released by Acorn Media on October 28, 2014. SRP $49.99 (DVD)

I remember many years ago when the cable network A&E actually showed program that were from beyond the realm of reality TV. It is a point of interest, because it is for me a reminder that you should never take for granted what you have because it may be gone before you know it. A&E showed a lot of great television. The station was known as Arts & Entertainment, I am not sure what it is known for now.

I may have been a bit of a snob because the programs they showed often also shown on PBS so I didn’t want to see these series with commercial breaks and logos plastered all over it. Back then, logos plastered all over was just one logo in the corner, nothing like what we are forced with now. Anyway, they would show some amazing series such as Yes, Prime Minister, Black Adder, All Creatures Great and Small which were all series I would watch on PBS but there was one that I got introduced to on A&E that has become a long-time favorite. Lovejoy.

My Monday night ritual back in the day would be watching Murphy Brown on Monday nights at 8pm and at 9pm would be Lovejoy. I would sit down with a snack and just sit to enjoy this wonderful series. It made Mondays worthwhile and I was in high school back then so I made sure I got my homework done early. It was really a lot of fun. It created lasting memories for me because it was quintessential British television that took place in the country and was dealing with antiques. It may sound boring but it is anything but boring.

I am reviewing Series 3 of Lovejoy which was originally broadcast in 1992. I never realized this before that I was actually watching this series when it was new. In the literature I got with the DVD set I am reviewing from Acorn, there is a quote from the New York Times that says that Lovejoy is “The James Bond of antique dealers.” This is a description that I would like to respectfully disagree with for now. Lovejoy is a lot of things but the term James Bond seems absolutely out of place. But here is the interesting thing, Lovejoy IS a lot of things. This is what makes this one of the best TV series ever made.

Did I just go as far and say that Lovejoy is one of the best TV series ever made? Absolutely! Lovejoy is a divvy. This is someone who can tell a genuine antique when he sees it. He has a gift and is extraordinarily knowledgeable about all manner of antiques. The series itself, I would term as light drama with some wonderfully funny character moments. It’s not steeped in drama. There is actually quite a bit of action because the series dabbles in criminal murder mysteries yet most of the mysteries surrounds the art & antiques that Lovejoy is involved with each episode. Maybe early on Lovejoy may have been involved in some shading dealings but as the series progresses, he involves himself with legitimate partners. By the time we get to Series 3, Lovejoy has a nice business going with his friends. He may need to dip back into the world of questionable dealers once in a while for one reason or another but he is genuinely a kind hearted person.

I consider this period of the series to be one of the best. I had actually forgotten that until I sat down to enjoy these episodes. The character of Lovejoy is completely formed. Where the New York Times called him the James Bond of antique dealers, I call him more of a loveable rogue. Almost, at times, a Robin Hood. Lovejoy wants to make money but he wants to be fair to the people he is working for especially if there are people down on their luck with that one antiques piece that they have been holding onto for a rainy day.

The supporting cast is pretty well-defined by this point too. These people are the icing on the Lovejoy cake. Lovejoy could carry the series on his own. I really think Ian McShane has that ability with this character but the supporting cast are amazing and have all been with him since the first series. Lovejoy’s closest friend and associate is Tinker Dill. This is back in the day a TV series could have a loveable alcoholic and there didn’t need to be a “special episode” to deal with his problem. The alcoholism is the backdrop as Tinker is from a different era and just continued to drink into the current era of the 1990s. Where Lovejoy is a genuine divvy, Tinker is extremely knowledgeable about antiques as he has been in the business for many, many, many years. He knows stuff that Lovejoy doesn’t know and has a great memory. He is a fantastic character.

My favorite has to be Eric Catchpole played by Chris Jury. Eric started in the series from the first episode as a young guy who didn’t have much ambition to do anything in his life so his dad paid Lovejoy to try to get Eric interested and involved in the antiques business. I guess it worked. No doubt that Eric is the comedy relief of the series and much of the side plots/problems are caused by him in the episodes but he, as a character, has grown. It’s not like he is Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island who week after week messes everything up. He has a great understanding of the trade though he still makes plenty of mistakes. He knows he is not perfect yet strives to act with an air of confidence. I actually had lunch with Chris Jury once. Actually, I had lunch with TV’s Frank from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Chris was with us. Both men were funny, kind and pleasant. That was a treat.

Finally, there is Lady Jane Felsham. She has to be one of the kindest people I have ever seen on TV. She befriended Lovejoy in the first series and she has been very loyal and supportive of him ever since. She is married but things start to change in the season. Lovejoy from the very beginning has been nothing but a gentleman to her. It is clear that he really loves her but he has always respected her life and the role she played in her community. As a Lady, she is very down to Earth and has always accepted Lovejoy as an equal. Lady Jane and Lovejoy are partners in business and this has helped Lovejoy stay on the right track.

When we get into the first episode of this set, it picks up a bit where we left off in Series 2. I do want to say that this doesn’t mean you have to see these episodes in order to pick it up. I actually think it is pretty easy to pick up where this series is going because there isn’t any real story arcs. That being said, good things happened at the end of the last episode of Series 2, The Black Virgin of Vladimir. At the end of the episode Lovejoy makes quite a bit of money and goes away for a while. It’s been 6 months since anyone has heard from him and everyone has gone their own way. Lady Jane is back to her life of sole community service, Tinker for reasons that are unknown joins a monastery where there is no drinking and Eric has gotten a “real” job in the security business. He is a security guard. But he does have a uniform.

The thing I love about this set of episodes is that there are a lot of mysteries about specific pieces of art or antiques that we get knowledge of from Lovejoy or Tinker. Many of the episodes shows us pieces that have specific history and are presented in a way that makes tons of sense but I haven’t really found any evidence that they are real such an old bowl called Smoke Your Nose which was in an episode, funny enough called, Smoke Your Nose or the idea of loveknots in Indian rugs. In the rugs, a woman who was asked to marry a man in their culture would put her answer into an intricate rug. It’s old tradition and sounds really cool but I am not sure if it I real. I couldn’t find any info on it in my exhaustive search or it. If you can call looking something up on Google as exhaustive.

What I love about this series is that there is always someone trying to scam someone else in the world of antiques or pull the wool over their eyes. This is highlight because just as you think you know what is going on, someone has slipped someone else a fake or aid in counterfeit or made some big mistakes. It’s fun to watch Lovejoy and his friends try to figure out what is going on. Sometimes they are a step ahead or behind and maybe even get scammed themselves. That being said, kind of like what I always say about All Creatures Great & Small, Lovejoy always has a happy ending to the episodes. When the credits roll, I always have a smile on my face.

The series does not take place in London though they sometimes need to go there. It takes place around English country settings. If you read any of my articles, you know I go crazy for this sort of setting. It is my favorite thing. I love how the series looks and is shot. The country is always so pleasant looking. It is always sunny and green. It is shot so well. So much of the series takes place in manor homes or just generally nice places. The picture quality on this release is going to be the same as the other releases and also the original releases by the BBC a few years ago. This series was shot on film but was transferred to tape for post-production editing. The quality is fine. It looks good but we are now in an enlightened age of stuff that was shot on film but edited on tape to get a re-transfer and color grade. That is how series such as Poirot, House of Cards and Miss Marple get new leases of life on Blu-ray. I do not see that ever happening with Lovejoy. This is an expensive process to go back, re-scan and edit the episodes back together. There are 71 episodes of Lovejoy and I don’t get the impression that the copyright holders are interested in putting money into it. Now, let me be clear on a couple of things. This is not a fault of Acorn Media, they are distributing these sets. Also, the episodes do not look bad. They look fine, I can’t help t think what they could have looked like completely remastered. The bottom line is that episodes are highly enjoyable.

Along with how the episodes are shot, another major piece to this production is the music. It is fantastic. From the actual theme music to the incidental music, it is cohesive and a joy to listen to in each episode. If there was a soundtrack for the series available to purchase I would do so in a heartbeat. The music is a sort of classical genre piece using strings and harpsichords. It’s tough watching the episodes because the theme stays with you for days after watching it. In fact, the music seems to kick into high-gear when I am driving somewhere and I can hear the “Lovejoy driving” music in my head. It’s fun. It really makes every aspect of the production cohesive.

Some of my favorite episodes on this set are Smoke Your Nose which features a Roman land that a vicar is trying to protect. I really enjoy stories that include a lot of historical overtones and this episode also benefits from an ending with a twist. Scotch on the Rocks is a great and I love the episode Eric of Arabia which sees Lovejoy become incapacitated due to something Eric did and spends most of the episode in the hospital suffering a broken leg. The episode is directed by Ian McShane. This has a great plot that surrounds the history of an ancient clay pig. It has a great combination of humour and some suspense.

There is a great guest cast in this season.  Burt Kwuok, Michael Kitchen, and Minnie Driver. There is an ongoing storyline in the early episodes with Joana Lumley’s character Victoria. Those are some of the main stars but there are a ton of people we would have seen in other British television series that I enjoyed watching in this series of Loveyjoy such as Peter Halliday, Russell Hunter, Nickolas Grace, Maurice Denham, John McGlynn, Angela Bruce, Paul Brooke, Edward Hardwicke, Nadim Sawalha, Paul Rogers, Simon Ward and the group Hothouse Flowers.

I think Lovejoy Series 3 is among the pinnacle for the series. There are great episodes, characters and stories. Even if you haven’t seen Series 1 & 2, it doesn’t matter. It is very obvious from the start this is a quality series that should not be missed.

Upcoming DVD/Blu Ray Reviews: Miss Marple Series 1 Volume 1. I have already posted some of the remastered pics but a full review of the Blu-ray is coming soon and also a review of the Blu-ray release of the final series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Series 13.

Have a great week!

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