Wasn't overly impressed with the one on the ship - rather broad, though the sets were very good.
Wasn't overly impressed with the one on the ship - rather broad, though the sets were very good.
Yes, "broad", that's a very good description and the kind of word I was searching for. I guess the sets were pretty good, it must have cost a bit as they couldn't rely on any of the regular sets beyond the first few minutes. I wonder if any of them came from something else - you had the bar, the purser's "office", the deposit box area, Derek Farr's cabin, Rose's cabin and various bits of deck and corridor with steps up/down. Yes, there was quite a bit of effort on the set front.Originally Posted by IanBeard
“Not easy, but less difficult in the context of Flaxborough society than looking for, shall we say, an embezzler or a fornicator.”
Four episodes down now and have enjoyed them all so far. In some strange way it reminds me of Mrs.Thursday in terms of some of the humour and banter between Rose and the others. I'm already looking forward to series 2 and 3 (which are on VT I believe). These are basically witty whodunnits with lots of flair and humour!
Tee hee - there's a Mr. Jago in one of Holmes' stories.
And a Mr. Keith Waterhouse and a Mr. Willis Hall too - had to laugh out loud there!
You missed Penelope Mortimer - though those names are used as tongue-in-cheek disguises by characters.
The telerecordings are more than usually zoomed in on this, aren't they?
Not that I've noticed - though Granada's TRs never do seem to be the best of the bunch. Remember THE CAESARS?
There are a few where the occasional acting credit is partly cropped off the bottom of the credit "card".
“Not easy, but less difficult in the context of Flaxborough society than looking for, shall we say, an embezzler or a fornicator.”
Yes, I noticed that too. The recordings are more than adequate (especially as it seemed to be thought that series 1 was non existent for some time) but not amazing all the same. Looking forward to the crystal clarity of vt in series 2 and 3!
After a bit of a break, I've resumed ROSE with the third disc.
Martin Worth certainly has a better grip on things than Robert Holmes, with a pair of entertaining episodes out of the three - though it's unfortunate that THE HONEST VILLAIN appears to have been telerecorded while some rackety, noisy equipment was operating right next to it.
A bravua performance from Dilys Watling in THE DEADLY DOLL - another good one from Martin Worth.
Considering how talked about MR. ROSE was before this release came out, I'm surprised it's so quiet now it is!
Well, I'll be chipping in before long, I just need my DVD budget to recover for a bit. It's definitely a series that I will be looking at closely when I get there.
I admit that I am surprised that there haven't been more reviews of this series. I personally have taken longer to get through the set than I sometimes do but that is mainly due to more work committments this month plus I want to really take my time over enjoying the episodes. I have to say I have enjoyed each one so far. I am now up to the Honest Villain. I was interested to see Barbara Knox (Rita in Corrie) in the episode The Tin God. I thought that that was a particularly interesting episode mainly because there have been real life incidents - one in particular which seem to have parallels with this episode. John Halifax is a strange characer with his continually changing of accents. I remember really liking Gillian Lewis at the time and I still do. I wonder why she stopped acting. Or indeed why she didn't do the second and third series. William Mervyn is a very interesting actor and there are time when I think that he might have made quite an interesting first Doctor (Who). There are similarities between Mr. Rose, The Avengers and Spyder's Web. Thrillers with lots of witty lines and very likeable casts. I would say that one of the great strength of this series was the sets. Not much location filming though. But as many series of this time it plays more like a series of stage plays than anything else. And I have to say that that is how I like my TV drama most. I would really like to know more about the history of the show and how after a well received first season fewer episodes were produced for the second and then it just kind of fizzled out during the third with not all the planned episodes being made. It is a shame that Andrew P wasn't asked to write one of his excellent books on it. It is yet another drama series from Network that after watching some episodes you want to know more about how it was made.
I enjoyed this set too, having waited for a long time for it to come out. Overall, although I like the series premise and Mervyn's excellent portrayal of the main character, some of the actual stories were weaker than hoped for and not very gripping. Some of the writers seem to script it better than others and a few don't seem to have a feel for it at all. The leads are all good and the relationship between them is very quirky. Mervyn is superb all the time but you get the feeling he is waiting for a really good script to come along so he can really put his characterisation to good use! A few episodes (not many) are just plain weak, although the beginning of the run is strong and very promising. But I'm very much looking forward to seeing series two and three though and see how things develop. I think Mr.Rose would have worked very well as an Avengers-type film series (probably it would have worked better, in fact). It had all the right ingredients although the stories would have needed to have been tighter.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote