Monday, September 28, 2009

Movie Monday?


A couple of the refugees from the old 360 are trying to get theme days going here. As my frequent readers know I do Poetic Journey on Wednesdays on my blog Creative Journey (hotlinked on this page). Dangerous Meredith and Nicholas V (Intelliblog) are supporters of the Movie Monday, so check out their blogs.

I thought I might join in from time to time but what I have to report on this week is not really a movie but a British television series: The Last Detective.

The Last Detective is an ITV drama starring Peter Davison as Dangerous Davies. The first series aired in 2003 with three more seasons succeeding this. The first consisted of a pilot and three episodes, the second and the third series both consisted of four normal episodes and the fourth series increased the run to five episodes and the duration of each individual episode to ninety minutes as opposed to the previous seventy minute format. As of 2007 this series had seventeen episodes in total. The series follows Detective Constable "Dangerous" Davies who is seen as a joke by his colleagues but is committed to his work. As the series progress, his reputation improves with his colleagues and his estranged wife, Julie. The series is based on the Dangerous Davies series of novels written by Leslie Thomas.

Granada have stated that the fourth series was the last. "The Last Detective: Complete Collection" was released on Region 1 DVD on 20th January 2009 and includes all 17 episodes of the TV show, the movie starring Bernard Cribbins which tells the same story as the TV pilot, and other features including an interview with Peter Davison.

I have become quite a fan of British television especially since opting out of American television which has been aimed more and more toward the lowest common denominator. Since cutting off the cable feed I have joined Netflix and watch even my British favorites on DVD's. Definitely the way to go with no commercials or interruptions for fundraisers or station identifications. You can actually keep track of the plots. There is some great character development on this particular series.

DVD's are also a great way to catch those shows you did not see when they were actually on the air. And you can watch the whole series in a short period of time instead of over years.

5 comments:

The Blog of Bee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Blog of Bee said...

Detective Morse was an all time favourite of mine.
It's not that I am biased but I don't actually like American detective series very much. I'm not a fan of Monk - or put it this way - I wouldn't put off something else to watch it. The closest I've come to liking anything lately is The Mentalist and after a couple of episodes of that I switched off!

Movies - I watched 'The Notebook' on Saturday. it got some really stinky reviews but the fact is that whilst the love story may have been a bit over the top, dementia is a very real disease and cannot be sugar coated.

JBinford-Bell said...

The ones on American TV I like are NCIS, Numb3rs and The Closer. Though I did watch all of Monk series. Most American TV mysteries go for the gore and I am not into that.

I too like Morse. And also enjoyed Lewis which followed that up.

The Blog of Bee said...

I like The Closer, Cold Case - I am more into medical series.
I liked the original CSI very much but lost interest when it went to Miami!

JBinford-Bell said...

I lost interest in the original CSI when the love affair started. I did not like that particular female character anyway. A bit of a whiner but just watched the latest season with Grisham and girl friend gone.

Back to liking it. Hated CSI Miami from the git go.