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The Jury Miniseries…

December 7, 2008

The Jury If you have read the other TV and Movie Reviews on the Cozy Mystery site, then you have probably figured out that I only post reviews about shows that I enjoy. Why waste time on the bad when there are so many good? And, The Jury is yet another example of a British miniseries that does not disappoint.

The Jury follows a trial that is a media frenzy. It shows how juries of such “made-for-television-ratings” crimes are affected by the constant barrage of reporters and “looky-loos” who feel that the public’s “need to know” far outweighs the biased agenda that spins uncontrollably…. out of control!

The jury members not only have issues trying to understand the crime, they also have issues in their private lives. This series left me wondering how jury members really relate to the particular crimes they are called to hear and how their different daily moods can affect the outcome of their verdicts.

For you Sir Derek Jacobi fans: he gives yet another great performance. Hopefully a lot of Gerard Butler fans will be attracted to this miniseries and be treated (possibly introduced?!?) to several other exceptional actors.

By the way>>> This is NOT a miniseries for the entire family!

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Manor House Miniseries…

December 3, 2008

Manor House To those of you who have read some of my other TV & Movie reviews>>> you probably have guessed that It was only a matter of time before I reviewed yet another of Sir Derek Jacobi’s works. Manor House is a departure of sorts, as he is the narrator, not actually one of the stars of the show. But his narration is a true joy to listen to… especially if you’re one of his many fans.

The premise of this six part miniseries: People from 2002 are transplanted back in time – the Edwardian period (early 1900s) – to a manor house in Great Britain. This was a time with vastly differing social classes. Upon entering the grounds of this particular manor house world, the twenty first century inhabitants lost all of their twenty first century technology. YOW! Have we improved our circumstances since then!

For those participants of the televised experiment who were lucky enough to portray (as in LIVE!!!) the aristocratic family>>> bravo for you! For those participants who were “lucky enough” to live the parts of scullery maids, stable boy, butler, cook, ETC>>> YIKES! Times were tough! (I don’t personally know anybody who could survive, let alone flourish, in the life of a scullery maid!) And, of course, as expected, the family living the aristocratic family’s part becomes…. Oops! No spoilers here!

My husband and I enjoyed this show immensely and looked forward to each and every episode. The one big draw back for us: we would have enjoyed spending even more time with the inhabitants of this particular Manor House!

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Jonathan Creek Mystery Series…

September 28, 2008

Jonathan Creek - Season One If you are looking for a funny (television) mystery series… then you might enjoy the Jonathan Creek Mystery Series. The first three seasons of this series are some of the most entertaining mystery shows that my family has “accidentally” found. This entry is about just the first three seasons of the show. They were a delight to watch.

The show stars Alan Davies as Jonathan Creek , and the wonderful Caroline Quentin as his side kick Maddy Magellan. Actually, I use the term “side kick” rather loosely, since they are equally intrinsic to the show… but since Jonathan Creek is actually the magician/illusionist, I’ll go with that term.

Both of the actors are a delight to watch. The only negative that I can think of imparting is that Caroline Quentin decided to leave the show after its third season. (Don’t quote me on that…. it’s sort of what I remember from years ago when I looked it up…) The First Season (1997) was such a delight to watch… It was like finding a hidden gift. Season Two (1998) provided a continuation of the fun!  On to Season Three>>> More great fun with Jonathan and Maddy… somewhat reminiscent of Nick and Nora Charles (at least to me!) The fourth season brought in the very accomplished actress Julia Sawalha (Saffy from Absolutely Fabulous) as her replacement, but the dye had been cast for my family and we simply weren’t able to make the transition to the new “format” of the show.

The premise of the show is that a very accomplished magician/illusionist (Jonathan Creek) is called upon to help solve a mystery that is virtually impossible to solve… He consents to helping solve the mysteries…sort of against his will. It’s not a career choice that he has made>>> Solving the mysteries has been thrust on him. Maddy, on the other hand, is an investigative journalist, always looking for a breaking-news story. Maddy simply perseveres to get (as in “make”) Jonathan give her that story… She hounds him mercilessly. She simply insists on partnering up with him even though he is fervently against this partnership.

The mysteries are truly stumpers… the types that really would require a magician’s trained mind to solve. And, the audience has fun watching the duo go about solving those mysteries.

♦If you would like to see more TV & Movies suggestions, click here.♦

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Bramwell Update…

August 18, 2008

I think that I mentioned before that we have all of the Bramwell DVDs… And, since we do, we are able to take our time watching them. I thought that I had seen the entire series when it first aired on PBS… Now that I have just finished re-watching the entire series, I find that I hadn’t actually seen the last (fourth) season.

I watched the series years ago when Masterpiece Theatre aired it. A few years ago I decided that we would enjoy the series as a family, so we got all of the DVDs. We waited to watch them when both of our college-age children were home, so it took us a while to watch all of the discs.  Our son watched the first season with us and decided that it wasn’t something he wanted to stay with, so we went on without him. And, our daughter comes home so infrequently, that it has taken us a long time to finish the series.

If there are any people out there who are thinking of watching the series: I would highly recommend the first three seasons. Everything I said in the initial post about the Bramwell series still stands.

HOWEVER!!!!!>>>>>

I would stop watching the series after the third season. It appears to be quite evident that they had planned on finishing the series after the third season… They had a definite completion (of sorts), with all of the characters seemingly knowing what they were going to be doing in the future. I would not recommend the fourth season. (It seemed like they simply tacked the fourth season on to the first three excellent seasons.) I won’t state the reasons since there are people out there who may be planning on watching all of the series’ discs, but be forewarned, the fourth season doesn’t stand up to the other three seasons’ level of excellence! My husband, daughter and I were left wondering who these characters were, since they were so “out-of-sorts” with the well-developed characters we “knew” from the first three seasons. Certainly, if we had started watching the series with the fourth season, we never would have watched the first three excellent seasons… That’s how much we disliked the new personalities of the old characters!

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