DVD Review: Young James Herriot

Young James Herriot DVD 1-Disc (176 min) 16:9 Stereo

Released by Acorn Media on September 4^th 2012. SRP $29.99

This series is not All Creatures Great & Small. The BBC series All Creatures Great & Small is one of those TV series I hold very close to my heart. If you want proof, please take a look at here, here or here. This is a series that I have been watching since a very young age. I have read the books of James Herriot and seen every episode of All Creatures Great & Small. Of course, I was very leery about anything that is made about him that takes him out of the surroundings of Darrowby. It’s a series with James but without the likes of Siegfried or Tristan Farnon. There is no partnership with his life-long love Helen. Young James Herriot takes place before all of this. As someone who has grown up watching this series, it may be easy to see why I was so concerned. Like I said in my first sentence, this is not All Creatures Great & Small but that is because it is not supposed to be. It is a series that creates its own feel and we watch James as he enters veterinary college in Glasgow. This is a really good series and one that I should not compare to All Creatures Great & Small but I may unintentionally slip a little. There is a lot of work that goes into this series and it pretty much succeeds on every level. To me, what was the most important aspect was James himself. There was something about James in All Creatures Great & Small that I loved. He was optimistic and had the ability to laugh at himself and take misfortunes in stride. I appreciated his optimistic side. That is what I wanted to see and I think I did.

DVD Content:

Young James Herriot was a series that ran over three nights from 12/18/11-12/20/11 on BBC One. It’s about the years of James Herriot we have never known about before which was his years in veterinary school.  The series starts off with James (Iain De Caestecker) arriving in Glasgow to begin his training as a vet. Right away a man by the name of Rob McAloon (Ben-Lloyd-Hughes) plays a joke on James that makes him late for his first lecture. Just as I mentioned at the beginning, James takes this in stride. Of course he is upset but by no means is he vindictive about it. From the start, James runs into problems. He doesn’t have a ton of money and ends up losing his room he was going to rent because he was scammed. Plus, through all of this, he caught the attention of the professors at the school and not in a good way. His first day there, James breaks up a fight between Professor Richie (Tony Curran) and a workman by the name of Halliday. This is over how Halliday is treating his own horse. Halliday throws a punch at Professor Richie and James breaks it up explaining that he can look at the horse since he is a vet. Of course that is not true.  His says this not knowing that Richie is a Professor at the college James is attending.  James has only been in school for a couple of hours! Professor Richie explains to James that if he thinks he knows so much already, he should figure out what is wrong with Halliday’s horse.

The one problem I had with James going into school is that it is said that he did no scientific studies at all in school. I am taking that he didn’t do any chemistry or anything sort of science classes at all. I am not sure how he was accepted since it appears his professors are somewhat confused by this too. One thing that is made clear in the episodes and backed up by the “Making Of” feature on the disc is that James entered into veterinary school when the field appeared to be drying up. Because automobiles were becoming more mainstream, horses were starting to be phased out of daily work life on the streets and in farms. To stay open, these schools needed to do whatever they could to keep money coming in and I suppose that is how James ended up in school. Professor Richie says that being a vet also takes instinct and James really does show that in these episodes.

When it comes to instinct, James feverishly researches to find out ways to cure Halliday’s horse. Even after he misdiagnoses the animal on a couple of occasions and basically making an enemy out of Halliday, James perseveres to find a way to cure the animal. Is James able to do it? The ending of this episode is similar in some ways to the ending of the first episode of All Creatures Great & Small, Horse Sense.

What make this series great are the characters that James meets. Even though McAloon is a sarcastic jerk and is that way throughout the series, they do become friends. James also meets from the beginning Emma “Whirly” Tyson (Amy Manson). Her and McAloon are close friends and they live in the house of her Auntie Munro (Natasha Little). Whirly is part of the new wave of thinking not only hitting the veterinary world but just the world in general. She is part of the movement that believes that women should be equal to men. She is one of the first women in veterinary school and campaigns for equal rights for even something as simple as a women’s bathroom. It is an uphill battle for her. For her views in the world at that time are extraordinary and are often not shared even by other women. For her to be involved in the veterinary world is unimaginable in 1933. This view especially not shared by Professor Gunnell who is also Vice-Dean of the college. He does not believe women have an equal right in the world and they do not have a place in the veterinary field. Gunnell and Whirly clash often with Whirly nearly being kicked out of school on a couple of occasions. Auntie Munro owns the house that Whirly and McAloon live in and the James eventually joins. Auntie Munro is a widower and has an appetite for younger men. She takes an immediate shine towards the young Herriot. It’s done affectionately and in a tasteful way. Auntie Munro is constantly flirting with James and to some extent McAloon but she is a wonderfully loveable character.

The series itself is kind of gloomy. This series does not take place in the country of Darrowby or the confines of Skeldale House like All Creatures Great & Small. This is Glasgow which was a booming big city in the 1930s. The color palette is dreary. The rooms are smoke-filled with a green and white color scheme to them. To be honest, the whole color-grading of the series is pretty drab. In the second episode, the series does get out to the country and even out there it isn’t quite as colorful as one would think though it is nice to see a young James Herriot out on a farm trying to make things better but that isn’t what happens.

James Herriot means well but he is a massive trouble-maker. In each of the episodes he causes huge amounts of trouble while trying to do good things. Over the course of these episodes through his meddling, James manages to cause misfortune to the Halliday family virtually eliminating the means for them to make money which forces Halliday to put his son into a poor house, James breaks up an engagement between a man and a women that also causes the women to be estranged from her family and finally he nearly gets Whirly kicked out of school for unknowingly ratting her out for a prank she played on Professor Gunnell. The episode features some pretty big themes that really brings some great dramatic moments to the series. I already mentioned the theme of equality of women that Whirly strives for throughout the series. It is done in a way that absolutely does not over power the narrative and feels right for how the story is told. I think what is more interesting is that other women during this period do not share her view. Jenny Muirhead is also a student at the veterinary college. The difference between Jenny and Whirly is that Jenny believes that if she just puts her head down and not cause a fuss, she will get ahead in her career. Also Jenny’s parents are rich. When I mean rich, think of rich and times that by ten. They basically own Glasgow. Professor Gunnell actually gets money from her parents to start a scholarship program. Jenny and James start to see more of each other romantically. The problem with Jenny’s parents is that they are fascists in 1930s Europe. They invite a bunch of notable people to their home, of course when I say home I mean castle, to raise money to fund Mussolini. There is even an ongoing analogy between the fascist movement and the pure bred dogs that the Muirheads keep and how they refuse to have those blood lines altered even if it means the death of one of their most beloved dogs.

It’s not all drama. In the second episode of the series, which is my favorite episode, the veterinary class is sent out to handle some real life experience in the field as the vet in the area is ill and has asked for the school to help him out. Classmates need to team up and unfortunately for James he is labored with McAloon. All the other students have some really interesting cases but James and McAloon get assigned to looking at a lamb that had been hit by a bike. The lamb is a cherished family member to this husband and wife. McAloon decide he wants to make money off this couple and comes back for multiple visits and charges them. Finally, there is nothing more he can do and has to put the lamb down but did he? My favorite moment occurs at the end of the second episode and won me over as a fan of this series. Check it out; I don’t want to ruin it for you.

Overall the series is directed very well. There is a scene with James doing a ton of research on horses when an idea hits him. Just at the moment, one of the old-fashioned light fixtures in the room turns on over his head as he has his “eureka” moment. Though I did see some continuity errors in some shots such as it raining horribly outside a barn but when James goes into the barn, the rain is still coming in but the light coming in is sunshine which was not evident outside. There are other shots when someone is looking at another person in a shot but when cut to s different shot, they are no longer looking in that direction. Minor things like that.

What is here is the essence of James Herriot. James Herriot in this series IS the same James Herriot in the TV series All Creatures Great & Small. He IS the same character as he is in the books written by Alf Wight. He is not a womanizer, he is a kind and gentle person who has a passion to do whatever it takes to save animals. He is still good tempered and generous. Here he is very naïve but it is still James Herriot and that is why I accept this series. The people who have made Young James Herriot have done right by him and that was very, very important for me as someone who adored the stories and characters of this cherished vet.

Quality:

With a series made in 2011, it would have been nice to see a Blu Ray release. Once again, as I am sure is the case with Injustice, there probably isn’t a market for it. Too bad, I think with the attention to detail this series has in the sets and some of the locations; it would have been gorgeous even with its paler color palette. The one thing I was not very happy with is the compression of the episodes on this release. As being a standard definition DVD release, I know that this is hard but the compression was not great. There are scenes with fog and/or smoke and there are some weird artifact effects happening. To be honest, it bothered me. I am a quality snob and I was disappointed by it. Luckily it is not constant and the episode themselves more than made up for this. I think anyone watching this on a non-HD TV will not have a problem with this.

Extras:

The main extra on this release was a 21 minute feature (which didn’t help the compression) on the Making of Young James Herriot. I like this a lot. It was incredible to see all the work that was done by getting the period feel right for it. The main street featured in the episodes were made specifically for Young James Herriot. It was also nice to see the son of Alf Wight (James Herriot’s real name) Jim talk about this series and how not only he approved of it but thinks his father would too. Alf died in 1995. The Making of Young James Herriot seemed to have some production problems. For example, shots of the people being interviewed were weird. They were either too close up or there was a strange amount of head room in some of the shots which made it look a little unprofessional which I am sure it is not. Also the sound was not mixed very well on it. Especially every time Joanna Vanderham was interviewed, her sound was really, really low. What I did like about the feature was that it was a straight forward “Making of” feature and not something that was overly spun like an Electronic Press Kit. I hate stuff that is overly produced with ton of graphics and interviews from the actor who are over the top and almost nauseating. If I want that, I will watch any of the special features on the new series of Doctor Who. The “Making of” on this disc is straight forward and tells a story of the love for the character of James Herriot which is what I have too. One other extra on the DVD is a photo gallery with a lot of great behind the scenes shots from the production. It features the theme music played over it…..constantly. Incidentally, I thought the theme music sounded something like what I would hear for a Michael Palin travel series.

Packaging:

The DVD comes in a single DVD amary case. The cover for this is very attractive and once again I think it is more designed and pleasing than the UK version. It is strange because the UK release of this DVD is also from Acorn Media yet why they are different, I do not know. I do see that the UK release is a two disc set which might help with the compression of the episodes.

UK DVD Cover

I know of a couple of people who are not sure what to think of this series as they, like me, are life-long fans of the work of James Herriot. Like them, I wasn’t so sure what to expect. What I got wasn’t All Creatures Great & Small and that’s because it is not meant to be that. In fact, in the “Making of”, the producer explicitly states that they were not trying to re-create or compete with it. You know what? It still fits in with that series because the character of James Herriot is still there. It doesn’t matter what setting he is put in, if the character is still loyal to the one that Alf Wight created then he could appear in anything. The series ends in a way that a second series could follow. I am one of those fans who would be very happy to see more adventures with McAloon, Whirly, Auntie Munro and of course the young James Herriot.

Disc Breakdown:

1 Disc:  All 3 episodes; The Making of Young James Herriot and Photo Gallery. TRT: 197 min

Next week: My hope is before next week to fit in a review of the 20^th Anniversary specials of Absolutely Fabulous from BBC video. What I do know is that next week I will post my tribute to actor Geoffrey Hughes who appeared in many productions but is my personal favourite as Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances.

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

I am on Twitter: @FromtheArchive

Also please subscribe to my From the Archive: British Television Blog Facebook Page for updates about new articles.

DVD Review: Injustice

Injustice DVD 2-Discs (223 min) Stereo SDH Subtitles 16:9 widescreen

Released by Acorn Media on August 28^th 2012. SRP $39.99 (DVD)

If you have ever been to this site before, it may be very obvious that most of the programs I watch are older British series from the 1950s to 1990s. It is the era I really got into British television as a kid so it still holds a very special place for me.  Watching programs from the twenty-first century seems almost weird to me but the good news is that there is a lot of good British television being made. I know a lot of people (and some friends) that say “they don’t make ‘em like they used to.” I personally think that is the case with the comedies but when it comes to thrillers like Injustice, they have never made them better. There has to be something said about a program that starts out one way and completely takes you on a journey that you didn’t expect. It is done without any pretention. It is a story that takes all of us on a roller coaster of intrigue and tragedy. Two murder cases going on at the same time with each investigator looking for a murderer and crossing the other’s path. The outcome is satisfying but not expected.

Content:

Injustice was a series that ran in the UK from 6/6/11-6/10/11 on ITV. This particular series was outside my radar mainly because it was shown over here in the US on DirecTV which is not something I subscribe to for television viewing. I wonder how many people know about this series? Hopefully with the help of this article, more people are interested in checking it out. The series was created and written by Anthony Horowitz. As it happens, he wrote some of the episodes from the last review I did which was Poirot. Of course, he did a lot more than that. Horowitz created Foyle’s War (another must-see). He wrote episodes of Midsomer Murders and will be writing the screenplay for the sequel to Tintin. Of course, some fans will never forget (or forgive) that he also created the series Crime Traveler. Some people like it and some people don’t. This is just a little bit of his output. He is very accomplished and has a massive body of work not only on television but film and in books.

This is a difficult series to write about as so much that is happening all leads to the conclusion of the series and I would be horrified if I ruined it for anyone. I have been wracking my brain to figure out a way to convey the series without ruining it for anyone who wants to see it. The series centers around a Barrister by the name of Will Travers. He used to take the defense on murder cases but something happened to Will that changed him. He was a very promising lawyer in London but Will got ill, if you will, and stopped defending murderers. At the beginning of the series, Will is defending a young black man who is accused of stealing a man’s war metals. The young man was innocent and it looked like a sloppy case by the police. In fact the partner of Police DS Wenborn ends up being put on suspension because of how poorly he handled the case. Wenborn has an immediate dislike towards Will because of the case he put together against Wenborn’s partner but Wenborn himself is a nasty piece of work.
Soon Wenborn is put on a murder case with a new partner. He doesn’t care how he obtains results as long as he obtains them. His commanding officer doesn’t care either; he knows that Wenborn will get what he wants. Even if it means cruelly threatening teenagers, insulting old women, or tampering with evidence or where evidence comes from. Oh, he also beats his wife, ridicules her and cheats on her. He really knows how to hold a good marriage together. Of course he doesn’t! He is a horrible husband. His wife tries real hard to be supportive but she is fighting a losing battle. On the other hand,  Will Travers is much luckier with his wife Jane.

Jane is a very well-educated woman who used to work in the publication business when they lived in London. After Will had his breakdown and they moved to Suffolk, she gave up that life. One thing she does do is go to the local youth prison and have a reading group with a few of the inmates. One young boy is very smart. His name is Alan and he actually can write.  He wrote a few chapters of a book and handed them off to Jane who took them to a publisher that is trying to woo her back to work in London. He loves the chapters! They seriously want to publish Alan’s book. Jane is a very loyal and supportive wife to Will. They have been together for a long time. Layers of the story reveal themselves to us over the course of the episodes. One thing is clear is that while in college, Will stole Jane away from their friend Martin Newall. Martin has just been arrested for murder in London and there is only one man he wants to represent him.

Martin works for Qestral, an oil company, in which he was having an affair with a very young secretary named Lucy. They went to a hotel in London one night. Martin went to get some food for Lucy and when he got back she was murdered….strangled. Martin knows that Will would be perfect for this case as he would be able to prove Martin’s innocence. One thing that is made clear during the investigation is that a Qestral computer belonging to Martin was stolen from the hotel room that night. What is the significance of this computer?

Jane does not want Will to take on this case even though Will, Martin, and Jane all went to school together. Will decides he is well enough to take on the case and starts the investigation that takes him to many different places where he finds out more about Qestral. Meanwhile, DS Wenborn is investigating the death of Philip Spaull who was an activist who would resort to violence if it was necessary. Spaull was shot execution style point blank in the face. Wenborn does a lot of investigating until he realizes that there is a connection between Spaull and Will Travers. What is the connection and how could Travers who is an upstanding Barrister have anything to do with this character Spaull? Everything I mention above is all connected in some way. The fun is to see how they are connected and how they get resolved. Oh, did I mention that Travers is often visited by the spirit of an 8 year old boy?

This series is about multiple stories that cross-over each other multiple times over the course of the episodes. I am sure much I have written about this series sounds clichéd but it is anything but that. I watched trying to figure it out and there were some truly shocking and unexpected twists and turns to this series. After I got to the end of Episode Two, I knew needed to see the rest. Even though the story is disjointed (to heighten the mystery), it plays out very well. I just want other people to watch so I can talk with them about it!

James Purefoy plays Will Travers. Purefoy played Mark Antony in Rome and was in A Knight’s Tale. He was also a contender for James Bond when the film series returned in 1995. Purefoy plays Will in a very calm and underrated way. He is gentle and fair. Yet, why is he the focus of an investigation? Dervla Kirwan plays Jane. Kirwan is known for her role as Phoebe Bamford in the BBC comedy Goodnight Sweetheart and also Miss Hartigan in the Doctor Who Christmas special, The Next Doctor.

Quality:

These episodes look great and they should. The series was shot in either 2010 or early 2011. The only thing that bums me out a little is that there is no Blu Ray release of the series. As far as I am concerned if the series is made in HD, it should be released in HD. It is fine if there is a DVD release too but I would like to get the series made in the format it was broadcast. I doubt this had anything to do with Acorn Media. It is released in the UK only as a DVD with no Blu Ray option either. Part of me wonders if it was released over here only on DVD since maybe not a lot of people are familiar with this series. It’s one possible explanation.

Extras:

The only extra on this DVD is the photo gallery. I am not a big fan of photo galleries but this one is alright. It plays through the photos itself with no option to jump ahead but it is played over the theme music to this series. What I also like is that these are photos from a photo shoot with the characters instead of just screen grabs from the episodes on the discs. I have seen that before and am always disappointed to see that happen. Not that this is an extra per se but I am pretty impressed when you pick an individual episode from the menu it gives a synopsis of the episode on screen. I think it’s a nice touch especially if you watch this over a period of time instead of all at once. It helps you get caught up.

Packaging:

I think this release has a striking cover with Will Travers on it. It doesn’t give away anything about the series. In fact, I would have thought the series would have had a different tone and feel based on it. I also think it is a lot better than the UK cover for the series.

UK DVD Cover

Honestly, you don’t need to be a fan of British television to dig this. If you love mystery and a good suspense thriller, this is very worthwhile. It’s a very smart and stylish production. Just check out the awesome artistic opening credits! They are wonderful. Give this intelligent suspenseful series a try and you will find out the real meaning to why this series is called Injustice.

Disc Breakdown:

Disc 1: Episode One, Episode Two, Episode Three TRT: 133 min
Disc 2: Episode Four, Episode Five, Photo Gallery TRT: 90 min

Coming Soon: In a couple of days I will post DVD reviews of Acorn’s release of Young James Herriot and BBC Video’s Absolutely Fabulous: 20^th Anniversary Specials. I am also going to resume regular non-review articles in a week with a tribute to Geoffrey Hughes who played (amongst other things) Onlsow from Keeping Up Appearances.

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

I am on Twitter: @FromtheArchive

Also please subscribe to my From the Archive: British Television Blog Facebook Page for updates about new articles.

DVD Review: Poirot Series 6

Agatha Christie: Poirot Series 6 DVD 4-Discs (415 min)

Released by Acorn Media on August 28^th 2012. SRP $39.99 (DVD) & $49.99 (Blu-Ray)

Since January of 2012, Acorn Media has been re-releasing all of the Poirot mysteries. This is pretty exciting since this is an excellent series that has been on the air since 1989 but this is the first time this series has been released in the US in its proper UK broadcast order and it has been completely re-mastered. I will get a little more into that later in this review but I realized very early on watching these episodes I was in for a treat.

This ITV series started in 1989 with the episode The Adventure of the Clapham Clock and has been running ever since with its start David Suchet playing, to me, the definitive version of Poirot. It’s funny as most production companies that ever has a go at making any Poirot stories, they always seem to start off with Murder on the Orient Express just like if anyone wants to make a Sherlock Holmes story, they tend to make The Hound of the Baskervilles. For this series, Murder on the Orient Express did not air until 2010. The series is still going strong with its star David Suchet vowing to complete all the stories written by Agatha Christie. Of course, I assumed he would as he is, to me, the definitive version of Poirot. He will be finishing up very soon with the final episode Curtain.

Something else that Acorn has been doing with these releases that commenced this year is that they released this series not only on DVD but Blu Ray too making this a very definitive collection of this series.

Content:
This set covers the 4 feature-length episodes from Series 6. On the DVD this is 4 discs with one story on each disc. The Blu Ray is a 2 disc set. The episodes covered in Series 6 are: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Hickory Dickory Dock, Murder on the Links, and Dumb Witness. If you have only heard of Poirot but never immersed yourself into this world, I don’t think you need to start from the beginning. I feel that you can pick up the series at any time. It’s all about loving a good mystery and finding a fascinating character to solve it. Poirot is all of that.

Agatha Christie first introduced us to the Private Detective Poirot in 1920 with the novel. The Mysterious Affair at Styles and makes his last appearance in the 1975 novel Curtain although it was written in 1940 by Christie. She wanted it to be published after her death although it was in fact published just prior to it. Through the years, other people have played the role of Poirot such as Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov. It was with Ustinov that Suchet played Chief Inspector Japp and later would take on the role of Poirot himself. The ITV series that started in 1989 was going to be different than anything we had seen before with a lot of attention brought to the dramatizations of the stories and exquisite detail to the era the series takes place in.

Series 6 begins with Hercule Poirot Christmas (original UK airdate 01/01/95). Poirot is looking forward to spending Christmas by himself and he is all set for a relaxing holiday until he gets a call from Simeon Lee who believes his life is in danger. Simeon has multiple grown children and has disdain for all of them. It appears there isn’t anything good about Simeon at all. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is murdered; his throat slit. How can he be murdered in a room that was locked from the inside under the very mustache of Poirot? It is necessary for Poirot to get Chief Inspector Japp in to help him solve this case. One of the highlights for me is seeing the part of the butler Tressilian played by actor John Horsley who played Doc Morrissey in the BBC classic series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. This is one of those great Poirot episodes that take place in a country manor with the backdrop of Christmas hanging over the tragedy. It has an interesting way to depict the passage of time as the image of a desk calendar is super-imposed over the action telling us we are getting closer to Christmas.  

Out of a series of great episodes Hickory Dickory Dock (original UK airdate 02/12/95) may have been my favourite. This episode incorporates a youth hostel with a group of University students who are all not what they seem. Poirot is brought in because his secretary, Miss Lemon, is worried. Her sister is running the hostel and there is a series of thefts in the house. Odd things are stolen like Stethoscopes, knapsacks, one shoe, etc. Why is this stuff being stolen and how does diamond smuggling fit into all of this? Unlike Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, which I figured out pretty quickly, this story has a ton of twists, turns, and miss-direction.  There are some that are so clever that I couldn’t share without the risk of giving away the end of the episode. My only real criticism of the episode is that there is this attempt at symbolic imagery that takes place along with the rest of the action of a mouse running around the house. It’s mainly, from a distance, watching the action.  I know that this plays in with “Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock”, it does play into the action at the end but I felt that this was not done in a way that really connected it with the rest of the story. Plus, seeing this immediately made me to start making comparisons with the BBC series The House of Cards where so many shots had imagery of a rat which was a direct correlation of what is happening in that series made me wonder why they did it here as it wasn’t as successful.

This episode is a ton of fun to watch and I think what really makes this interesting for me is the attention to detail. There are lot locations in this episode and just think about it. In a regular film shoot, great detail needs to be taken even if the shoot takes place in present day. I can’t imagine trying to do a series like Poirot and take great attention to make sure everything looks like 1936. I am not expert on this matter and I am sure some liberties are taken but I am satisfied with the overall look and feel of these episodes. A great example is a scene that takes place in the London Underground. The trains used are beautiful and antique. It gives a real good taste of what it might have been like back then. It’s gorgeous. Guest stars include a young Damien Lewis who plays Leonard Bateson and a personal favourite of mine, David Burke, who played a wonderful version of Watson in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Murder on the Links (original UK airdate 02/11/96) has a great start. A lot of shows or movies that are period pieces start with “newsreels” to set the stage for the action. This episode does that too but does it from the stand point of a group of people making the newsreel and announcer recroding the VO for it which clues us in to the background of the story. It’s essentially the same thing but done in a way to make it fresh. I have never seen it done that way before. Poirot and his close friend Hastings take a vacation to France where Hastings secretly books them in a hotel that caters to the golf enthusiast which Poirot is anything but. Poirot has little to worry about as he is soon caught up in a case of murder. Once again, many suspects with many angles. This case has roots that go back 10 years previous to when Poirot gets involved.

The stakes on this case becomes higher as Poirot does not have the luxury of working with someone like Chief Inspector Japp but he has to work with Monsieur Giraud who believes he is the best detective in France. So much so that Poirot and Giraud wager a bet to see who solves the case first. If Poirot wins, he gets to keep Giraud’s famous pipe that he smokes everywhere and if Poirot loses, he has to shave his trademark mustache.  Is Poirot clean-shaven by the end of the episode?

The final episode of Series 6 is Dumb Witness (original UK airdate 03/16/96). Poirot and Hastings go to England’s Lake District to see Hasting’s old friend Charles try to break the world speed record for a motor boat racing. As with Hercule Poirot’s Christmas and Murder on the Links, money is a factor in this episode. Emily Arundell is very rich and there have been some attempts on her life. Even after she changes her will to keep her wealth away from her family, she is murdered. Only one individual knows what happened and he’s not going to speak anytime soon.

This is another great episode with some fantastic location shots. There are not as many locations as in Hickory Dickory Dock but the story is shot very well making great use of the surrounding locations and the natural beauty of the lakes and old-fashioned houses in the area. Just like in some of the other episodes, there are some faces I recognize such as Julia St. John who played Laura in the BBC comedy The Brittas Empire and Jonathan Newth who has been in many series including playing the role of Dr. Soames in the 1981 adaptation of The Day of the Triffids which I just wrote about recently.

There is not much to say about David Suchet’s role as Poirot that isn’t already known. He is enchanting and quite honestly amazing. The character Poirot himself is someone who can be amusing and very serious at the same time. For a smaller unassuming person, Poirot has a way to get a great deal of respect from everyone he works with and if they don’t initially respect him by the time they are done with him they will. I really enjoyed in Murder on the Links, Poirot’s attempt at understanding the game of golf. At one point he asks Hastings if he is going to play a “circle” of golf instead of a “round”. At the end, he once again tries to show interest in the game by asking Hastings if he plans on improving his “disability” instead of “handicap”.

Quality:
Back in 1995-1996 when these episodes were made, the production process for these series often followed shooting on film, transferring to video and editing it on video for the final product. It is essentially done the same way today but there are a couple of major differences. First, the process of telecine which is transferring of film has evolved very much through the years to get a better picture than ever possible before. Secondly, programs today are produced in HD. Because of how Poirot was made, this series can benefit from the advances in technology. It appears that all of the film exists for these episodes and they have been re-transferred to HD and re-assembled. Unfortunately, I was not sent the Blu ray set so I cannot comment on how this looks in HD. I will try to get some examples or the set from Acorn because I am interested to see how this looks in HD. I watched the DVD and I think it is clear that it is a re-transfer. The image is very crisp. I looked at some of the older releases of Poirot from years ago and it is very clear these new transfer are very clean and very pleasant to look at to my eye. The one thing I might have a criticism about is the colors. For the first 3 stories on this set, I felt the colors were very cold and pale. I would have liked to see some warmer colors in the transfers but these might be consistent to how the director wanted them to look when the production was originally done. The colder color grading worked well for Hickory Dickory Dock as it felt natural to me for its art deco setting but it feels out of place for Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. Yet in Dumb Witness, work had clearly been done on the grading of the episode. There are shots by the lakes and at country houses that really benefit from the new transfer. Take a look at the skied in that episode you can see what I mean by the color grading.

Extras:
There are no extras on this release and maybe there have been on some of the earlier ones. I like extras but I honestly don’t see them essential for every release so having none here is not an issue for me.

Packaging:
I know you should never judge a book by its cover but I am a fan of owning the DVD or Blu Ray medium. So for me, the whole experience of the program and the packaging it comes in are important. I think the packaging for the whole Acorn re-release of Poirot is really very smart and effective. There is a nice house style that has a “classy”, for the lack of a better term, look to it. Each cover in the range is a picture of Poirot with some kind of background like a large room. It is obvious that the picture of Poirot is a from a screen grab cut out in front of a background but that’s fine. The Series 6 set comes with an outer sleeve that is very nice and copper colors are of a reflective material that looks nice on the shelf. I would imagine the whole series done this way would be really nice looking on the shelf. The DVD case itself is standard size that is a “flipper” that holds all 4 discs. It makes it a nice size to store.
This is a great set. It just has the episodes but I think that is fine. Work has been done to make them look as good as they can and the pricing for the DVD and Blu ray sets are reasonable. If you have not seen Poirot before, I don’t think you need to start at the beginning. Picking up this Series 6 release is just as good of an introductory into the world of Poirot from the 1930s as anything else.

DVD Breakdown:
Disc 1: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas TRT: 107 min DVD5
Disc 2: Hickory Dickory Dock TRT: 103 min DVD5
Disc 3: Murder on the Links TRT: 103 min DVD5
Disc 4: Dumb Witness: TRT: 102 min DVD5

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Triffid Take-Over! The Day of the Triffids Part Three

It’s hard to believe it’s already time to write about the Parts 5 & 6 of this series. It goes by really fast and in the course of 6 episodes a lot of stuff happens. Remember, when we started this series, it was a day after everyone had gone blind. We, as viewers, were introduced to an incredible and mysterious plant life known as the Triffids. We have seen human atrocities that we would have never thought possible and we see how people react in crisis from both sides of the spectrum: kindness and cruelty. Just think, this was all caused by some fantastic meteor……or was it?

Click here to read about Part One & Part Two

Click here to read about Part Three & Part Four

Part Five TX: 08/10/81

As we got to the end of Part Four, Bill was back at the University of London looking for Jo and someone else is there roaming the halls. Is it Jo? No, it’s Coker. Remember him? Because of him, Jo and Bill got separated in the first place. Because of Coker, Bill was basically imprisoned as the leader of one of the groups taking care of the blind. Now, Coker sees what everyone had been trying to tell him. It was a noble idea that he wanted to care for all the people who could not see but it was impractical. Not enough sighted people to take care of all the blind people. Plus now, the disease continues to kill off people by the droves. There were no groups left. Coker’s plan failed.

Bill must be one of the most even-tempered and kind people to ever walk the Earth. Face to face with Coker again, Bill does nothing to Coker. This does not seem out of character at all; in fact it seems just right. It is clear to me that Bill is one of those people who doesn’t want to hold a grudge, he wants to move on. He knows if he takes any anger out on Coker is futile. The Earth needs all the people possible to keep things together. After Bill explains to Coker that he plans on finding Jo, the two of them decide to go to Tynsham. That is where Beadley and everyone else had gone. Maybe Jo had gone there too. Upon their arrival, they find that things did not go according to plan. Beadley, Dr. Vorless, and Major Anderson have left Tynsham to Ms. Durrant. Dr. Vorless explained way back in Part Three how the conventional system of husband and wife would not be possible in a new world where the Earth needed to be repopulated. Ms. Durrant and others did not agree with this way of thinking and decided to break off from the group. It was Beadley and the others that decided to move on to somewhere else.

Coker thinks he can convince Ms. Durrant of the shortcomings of this community and rally them to be more realistic of what is happening around them and how to survive more efficiently.  Unfortunately, Ms. Durrant does not agree with his views and both Coker and Bill head off to find Jo. Bill is pretty sure that if Jo can, she will be heading towards The Sussex Downs. As they travel, they stop in a village after a blind man waives a white flag as they drive by. He comes out to them but a Triffid is waiting and kills him. Bill kills the Triffid with the Triffid gun. Coker decides that he wants to make another go at Tynsham. He wants to belong in a community. He takes one of the Lorries and heads back.

Driving on his own, Bill ends up nearly hitting a young girl as she runs out into the road. Her name is Susan. Her and Bill travel to The Sussex Downs and eventually find Jo. That seems very lucky to me but I know we need to keep the series moving. Bill decides that everyone on Shirning Farm (where Jo is staying) should join the community at Tynsham so Bill goes back to tell Coker. Unfortunately, when he gets there, he finds that the disease has taken just about everyone there. Dead bodies are scattered all over the place including Ms. Durrant. There is no sign of Coker. It is decided that Bill, Jo, Susan and the rest stay where they are. The last shot of the episode is the outside of the house with the Triffids waiting.

The first four episodes had some Triffid action but they are really in force by this episode. There are some very grim images of Triffid attacks. There is a wonderful shot of Bill and Coker driving under a bridge and the camera pans to a dead body on the bridge with Triffids looking on. A lot happens in the episode and there is a ton of travelling throughout. It starts out in London then moves on to Tynsham, then to The Sussex Downs. Yet, with all the movement, if almost feels to me like a bit of padding even when there is so much happening. I think the good news is that we really get to see the Triffids as they almost start to become the dominant life-form in the UK. Bill still doesn’t believe that the Triffids are capable of actually thinking or being instinctive but he sees for himself first hand. The incident in this episode with the blind man killed by the Triffid at the village. The Triffid had been biding its time, waiting for this man to come out. Bill is becoming more convinced.

Part Six TX: 15/10/81

Part Six starts out with shots of London. It’s London as we know or it, or rather as it was in 1981 but it has been overgrown with greenery. London is completely deserted. Part Six takes place 6 years after the events of Parts 1-5. Life is very different now for everyone. Bill and Jo have been together all this time and have a child of their own. Susan is older and has needed to learn to grow up faster than she should. She is a tremendous help to everyone.

Coker finds them and lands a helicopter on their property. He explains that he is on the Isle of Wight and he is a part of the community there. He wants to bring Bill and everyone to this community and it is especially good for Bill since he would become the Triffid “expert” to learn how to kill these plants off once and for all. They accept and they just need to finish things up where they are and will join Coker soon.

Things change very quickly. Susan needed to light a fire to alert Bill and Jo to get back to the house once Coker arrived. The problem is that a military group that has “control” over the area saw the smoke from this fire and make their way to the property too. It is led by a man named Torrence. Torrence explains to them that they will need to take on more blind people and create basically a work camp. Susan will be moved to another sector where she will also take on another work camp. Luckily for everyone, both Bill and Jo are extremely smart. They do not bat an eye to any of this. They accept Torrence’s new decree and they happily offer Torrence and his men a chance to have dinner and stay the night so they can all celebrate the new arrangement and friendship. Bill wants nothing to do with this new way of life and creates a plan for everyone to escape this military group. Right away, Bill has a plan which is to get the soldiers very drunk, sabotage the military vehicles and get out. They do this successfully and leave the military to the onslaught of the Triffids. Now, do Bill and everyone else make it to the Isle of Wight? It is not seen on screen but I like to think they do.

Now, without Paul’s wonderful Triffid site, I would never have known about one interesting fact. This is probably made very obvious in the book but do you remember back in Part Four when this mad man guns down Alf and other blind people who were in the care of Bill? That was Torrence. Nothing is made of it in the TV adaptation with the exception that the person who was cast to play this murderer and Torrence is the same person. It is a wonderful underlying moment and it made me love this program all the more for it. It isn’t shoved in your face and if you aren’t careful, like me, you could miss it altogether. Also, throughout this entire story, we are led to believe that this meteor caused everyone to be blind. Bill had a different idea. As he puts it, we don’t know all the satellites that rotate around the planet. What if one of them was a weapon of mass-destruction? What if it was accidentally or purposefully set off and its purpose was to blind everyone? This could also explain the disease that came out of nowhere that has ravaged the population almost immediately after everyone went blind. That could be part of the same weapon or a different one. There is a really good chance that this was a man-made catastrophe. It seems believable to me which makes the story more terrifying. Who knows what horrible abominations created by someone else is waiting to be unleashed on us!

The Day of the Triffids is nice because it doesn’t have a lot of actors that I have seen before. It doesn’t mean they are not famous, I just haven’t seen anything with them before. Bill is played by John Duttine who has been in a number of programs such as Jesus of Nazareth, People Like Us, Wuthering Heights, and Doc Martin among so much more. He plays Bill as a level-headed smart person who is able to take all the changes around him in stride. If he loses his temper it is for a good reason otherwise he is very intelligent. Especially when it comes to Triffids which is very important now.

Emma Relph plays Jo. She is someone else I am not too familiar with and looking at her entry in IMDB it looks like she hadn’t acted (at least on TV) since 1990. Jo was someone else who was able to adapt. It probably helped that she found a smart partner in Bill. When we first meet her, she is attacked by a blind man and is forced to do his will. To be fair, she had no idea the entire population turned blind. She learned from the mistake and became a very strong person. There were some actors I was very familiar with in this series. At the top of the list was Maurice Colbourne who played Coker. He played him as someone who used treachery to actually help the blind. Once he and Bill partnered with each other, Coker becomes a very trusted ally and friend. Of course Colbourne played Lytton in Doctor Who on two separate occasions but also played Tom Howard in Howard’s Way. Sadly, Maurice Colbourne was taken away from us too soon as he died in 1989 at the age of 49. Other people that I recognize are Morris Barry, Pat Gorman and John Hollis who plays the very sympathetic character of Alf.

This is a great presentation of this series. It is the normal mix of videotape interiors and film exteriors. I don’t know if any of the film inserts exist for this story but they appear on this DVD very strong. They looked like a good transfer which I am assuming is original to the episode. I didn’t notice any tape drop-out on the episodes themselves. Everything looked as good as can be expected for the time period these episodes were made.

This was released during a period when the BBC were releasing other vintage series of the same or similar genre such as The Invisible Man, The Nightmare Man, Adam Adamant Lives!,  and The Quatermass Trilogy. All of these, with the exception of Adam Adamant Lives!, were released in 2005 and all of these releases included DVD viewing notes written by noted TV historian Andrew Pixley. The only thing that I dislike about this release is the cover. It looks like some cheap made for TV movie or something and it is obviously anything but that. It’s kind of hard to see that big orange thing on the cover is a Triffid. It’s one gripe from an otherwise excellent DVD release and a very worthwhile classic BBC series.

Correction:

Last week I mentioned that in Part Four, the blind girl who was sent to seduce Bill into staying was horribly beaten by the rest of the blind people who didn’t believe he was going to stay upon her return. I got that one wrong. The blind people left because they were frightened that more people were getting the disease in their community including the girl. She had the disease and was not beaten. I don’t know why I thought she was. She mentions she is not brave and wants Bill to give her something to hurry up the process of her dying; to finish her off. Thank you Paul for pointing this out! I will amend my article from last week.

Some information used in this article comes from Paul Thompson who is a massive fan of all things Triffid and his website can be found at:  http://triffids.wuthering-heights.co.uk/index.htm Other information came from the DVD Viewing Notes booklet written by Andrew Pixley from 2005.

Some news:

I am getting into the reviewing business for this blog. I will be publishing reviews for some upcoming releases in the next few weeks for Acorn’s release of the Blu Ray of Poirot Series 6, Injustice and the 2002-2003 version of The Forsyte Saga. I hope to be doing more reviews from other labels too and I hope to share some other exciting news here soon. For next week, it will probably be the reviews I am publishing until I get my rhythm going. By no means am I going to stop the random viewings. In fact as I write this, I am watching the first and last episodes of The Last Detective (the Pilot & Dead Peasants Society) and will continue to write these articles. Lots of cool, fun stuff going on so please stop back and please let anyone who has an interest in British television know about this site.

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

I am on Twitter: @FromtheArchive

Also please subscribe to my From the Archive: British Television Blog Facebook Page for updates about new articles.