Writers like PDJames and Ruth Rendell write realistically on the complexities of human psychology and go to some disturbing and dark places of consequences of faulty thinking and mental and emotional derangement. From this story, I see that there are two female villains --- the narcissistic man-eating entitled cold-hearted sister and the deeply neurotic wife of the police surgeon --- by their selfishness created a chain reaction of mental anguish and emotional instability with deadly outcome. This story was a complex one and well done.
"I'll never see her again"....that moment when you realize the one you loved is dead and never coming back .... so well acted. Yes, it is exactly like that!
I believe in life after death and that one day I will be reunited with my loved ones forever. That’s more comforting to me than believing that I will just be a pile of dust blown away.
@@alcoholfree6381 & @Alana Ronald: Yes, well, believing in fantasy is much more satisfying than believing in reality. That's true for almost everyone everywhere.
@@huizhechen3779 But souls don’t die. Only corporeal brings. I am a psychic and psychics are very sure there is existence beyond the change called death.
The lady who played Angela Foley is Brenda Blethyn. She was great in this. I didn’t realize till later on that she plays the lead in Vera, one of my favorite more recent detective shows. Seeing her at an earlier stage in her career was a real thrill for me.
I’m dealing with Covid at the moment and have been binging watching Adam Dalgliesh mysteries to get my mind off how rotten I feel. Thanks for making these shows available. I remember watching them when I was young and they first were shown on PBS’s “Mystery” back in the 80’s and 90’s.
Thank you for restoring the Dalgliesh series. I watched 1-5 in one sitting last night than finished it this afternoon. It's marvelous. My vote for best Brit-Detective series theme music: Creepy but mournful. Thanks again.
I think sometimes gay characters are rewritten as straight I bet Danica was originally a gay man , but that she really did screw around with all those men .
Excellent episode. Some very good acting. Especially the performance given by the late Cyril Cusack as the slightly confused bereaved father - quite brilliant. Thoroughly riveted by the whole thing, thank you so much for bringing it to us. Not that it affected the enjoyment, but I did wonder at Dalgliesh seemingly so little affected by the death of his wife and child - or did I miss something?!
Love her books, loved Roy Marsden bringing Dalgleish to life! Same with Ruth Rendell and her books/tv movies. I enjoyed Dalgleish very much while it was in production and so happy to see him again via UA-cam! 👍 Thank 💖 You for this great uploaded series- with quality audio 👍 & visuals. Nice! 👍😀🇨🇦☘️
Absolutely stunning story and performances. I really had no idea until the end. And the surprising character insights... people you start out hating you end up loving and vice versa. Brilliant!
Yes, it is rather strange that so few watched this. It's generally well played, ms James' stories quite good and the technical quality none too bad. Thank you for the upload.
It takes a special sort of person to read PD James. That is similar to the reading of John LeCarre. It’s easy to read Stephen King’s scary penny-dreadfuls (per Harold Bloom) and James Bond; rather than PD James or John LeCarre.
Great episode! I am surprised the corner did it!! Wow….i love these shows and others like this. I surf utube to try and fine murder mysteries similar to this. I’ve never seen it before, but I can’t stop watching… Lol…..they’re wonderful….
Loved it. initially I couldn't figure why the 1st ep. was so slow paced; got more interesting and gripping as it went along...........80's tele: the best ! Thanks a heap for the upload.
A masterpiece like this starts with the writing and PD James' books need careful transfering to a script as the books were written to be read. Some wonderful performances by the cast here, enhanced by sound direction. A very great joy to watch and shows some of todays' efforts to be lacking
It is so hard to find comparative quality programs-acting......so good...so addictive.....here in North America. Everything here mediocre drama & acion-violence.....not this inductive attention grabing series.....I so enjoy English European Movies & series. Thank you for the uploads!
This was the first PDJames dramatized for American TV, somehow they edited it down to only six 1-hour shows on PBS. There are whole scenes here that I don't remember seeing originally. It's been so long that I didn't even remember who the murderer was--- the acting is wonderful for TV.
Well. Watched over two days. Inspector Dalgliesh, rhe philospher poet detective. And father confessor of the damned, too. Steady moral compass, affable severity and no nonsense character coming out his eyes! As for the rest, not Team Adam, at least six of the deadly sins, or vices if you prefer, on display: greed, envy, lust, vanity, pride and wrath. Pick your poison.
Barry Foster If I'm not mistaken he was once also star of a detective story called Van der Valk, not sure I spelled that right and I remember it being good and then there was of course his role in Frenzy. My sis and I used to stick out our tongues like one of the victims and have a laugh at that.. This is a good series and it's so nice how calm he is, American crime shows are often just over the top, but I do think it can be a little hard to keep track of all and it is a little strange sometimes but I like it:)
If the doctor could have overcome his lust for a woman who was just playing with him, he wouldn't have had to become a murderer and lose the children he loved as a consequence. The tragedy the weakness of the flesh can bring!
Did you not see his marriage? Does it not occur to you that he needed tenderness -- that it wasn't "merely" lust? And I put "merely" in quote marks because Nature purposely gave us strong sex drives; more problems arise from people suppressing them than from people satisfying them.
At 37.50 Dalgliesh tells Kerrison to "Get changed, William" - according to the credits, his name is not William, it's Henry. His son's name is William. It's a difficult, sensitive scene - someone must have decided that was the best take, even with the mistake - but I'm quite surprised they left it in.
@@paulgavin3603 Oops, hadn't thought of that - it does sound like "William" - but you're probably right. Thank you, for taking the time and trouble to point out my mistake - and for being polite about it!
@@Shinybuddies. There are many discrepancies between the spoken script and (if the Closed Caption text is used) the CC text. As you described, it is a sensitive scene, and the performance s top notch.
One day someone will write a mystery script in which the person suspected all along will have actually committed the murder. Rather than one of the persons least suspected of murder.
Great series. As an armchair cop speaking, how did they know that the tyres taken off the Cortina by the red faced Inspector had been bought from a specific place?
It was written in the book. The whole televised series was a blunder after blunder. The book is much better. Where did we see Dalgleish wife and child died. It jumped days and we never saw anything. It was all gush
The book is always much better. It ignites our imagination which is usually much richer. Some movie are better than others. Look at what they’ve done to Agatha Christie’s work. They make so many changes that you barely see what’s been done.
"Couldn't you have Loaned her the money?" See ? Justifiable to Keep Ann away from the children . I get that daddy has to go to prison but you must keep Ann away from the children .
It's been a long time since I've read the book, so perhaps these questions are addressed there and the screenwriter simply avoided them. #1 In the previous episode, the tires of Brenda's bicycle are slashed...Why did the killer do that? It brought Brenda to the chapel, but there's no reason that the killer would have wanted that. #2 Why would Dr. Max and Domenica conceal the identity of Domenica's lover?
SPOILER ALERT. I'm afraid the "1840" answer is too contrived - no-one plans to meet at such a specific time. And it would mean that the recipient would have to go to the chapel every day to get the information - very risky & impractical
Re: the time, I mostly agree (why not 1830 or 1845?), tho it *could* be a case of "Shift ends at 6 pm, takes 40 minutes to get there" or somesuch. With regard to the other: Keep in mind that the book this was based on was published in 1977, when extensions thruout the home *and* direct lines at work were far less common; I think that checking the chapel is plausible (if strained) -- plus, he wouldn't have checked it daily, given that they met probably once a week or so.
Those numbers usually are correlated with the songs in the Hymnals. Dalgliesh should have known that?? No biggy!! The songs are arranged to go along with the Scriptures read.
Suspense suffers and the interest of the story becomes rather diffuse from being spread and dragged out over 7 episodes. Still, it has its own, very English atmosphere as well as the "presence" of Roy Marsden as Commander Dalgliesh to hold it together.
Whilst what you say is quite true, since it is on you tube, one could watch one episode each night for 8 nights, or, indeed, 2 or 3 episodes per evening, thus preventing the ' dragging out ' of the suspense.
The portrayals of the people are very strong like when the young girl chews out the old woman. The older women then attempts to rope the 12 year a new one. Why do you dislike me? Dalgliesh doesn’t answer demonstrating his remarkable restraint.
So when everybody keeps talking about that old housekeeper being smelly it seems like an inside joke or some stereotype lost on me. Is it because she was a booze hound, or a bad taste joke about old people smell?
I think it's both -- and the threshold for age-ist bullshit was very high back then, so almost no one associated with the show would have thought twice about that offensive stereotype.
Maybe I missed something, owing to the long drawn out quality of this series, but who killed the first woman in the back of the car? Up to the point of Larimer's death, this is pretty obscure.
Her husband and he committed suicide. They skip over it pretty briefly, but they talk about it being "a form of justice," and then you see them cover his body with a sheet.
The daughter might be psychotic, but the old woman yelling at the child that her father doesn't love her is horrible. That's why people become psychotic, I'd say. This scene with none of the adults reacting to the child abuse was very uncomfortable to watch.
Good catch! My guess is you've spotted the foot of the sound man, the lad who holds the "dead cat on a pole" mic above the actors. He does a tricky dance when they're moving!
he put it on to climb down the wall of the lab to escape without being seen. He nwore the coat to avoid getting fibers from his own clothes on the brick wall. He was a pathologist after all and would know that much from being involved in many police investigations.
John Drake -- At 43:56, "I couldn't risk dragging my own clothes against the drainpipe or the stonework." (Had his clothes snagged and been examined later on, he would have been unable to explain the snagging). I think the other person's response is incorrect, because there was no reference to any fibers taken from the outside of the building -- if fibers had been taken and examined, they would have pointed to Middlemass. Forensic science was a lot less advanced in 1977 (when the novel was written) than it is now, in 2018, and it wouldn't surprise me to know that SOCO didn't even try to pull fibers from the exterior back then or even in 1983, when this aired.
I remember seeing it at the time and loving it. Timing was suspenseful then, now its ok, get a move on. The characters are still great but over emoted as per today. Don't think I could sit through another 6 episodes.
Ultimately disappointing. Everyone seemed to act as badly as possible and for sketchy reasons. Not wanting the wife to have custody of the children. Really? And what happens, now? Everyone acting out of selfishness and self-interest. No heroes here, among the "respected" medical profession. I've noticed a tendency of Rendell's to ascribe the basest of motives to her characters. Nice to see Malcolm Terris whom I so enjoyed in the series - "When the Boat Comes In" as well as a young and slender Brenda Blethyn long before "Vera" and Geoffrey Palmer as a far less secure character than his well known role opposite Judi Dench.
This was the worst piece of tripe I have ever seen. I love British murder mystery's, that's why this seemed so surprising bad. The over acting was ridiculous. The dialogue was infantile. The characters were over the top stereo types. The directing was appalling, like the overly long camera shots on a characters face when they say something that's a lie or as a means to trick the viewer into thinking who done it.There were so many unnecessary scenes that could easily not have been shown. Even the theme music was bland and disappointing. Seven episodes that really could have been done in three. The ONLY reason I watched this to the end was because of a glimmer of hope it might get better. It didn't ! P.S. It was Brenda Blethyn's voice that made me realize who she was. I have never seen her that young before.
Highly recommend this series great acting no americana junk or swearing ,just good old quality
@@kenreeve6549 just childhood sexual abuse🤢🤪🤥😞🤧😳💯😎
Writers like PDJames and Ruth Rendell write realistically on the complexities of human psychology and go to some disturbing and dark places of consequences of faulty thinking and mental and emotional derangement. From this story, I see that there are two female villains --- the narcissistic man-eating entitled cold-hearted sister and the deeply neurotic wife of the police surgeon --- by their selfishness created a chain reaction of mental anguish and emotional instability with deadly outcome.
This story was a complex one and well done.
Very insightful analysis. Thank you 🧐
"I'll never see her again"....that moment when you realize the one you loved is dead and never coming back .... so well acted. Yes, it is exactly like that!
That scene was so well done. Love the way Dalgliesh looks at her with kindness and comassion.
I believe in life after death and that one day I will be reunited with my loved ones forever. That’s more comforting to me than believing that I will just be a pile of dust blown away.
@@alcoholfree6381 Well, I believe the same thing.
@@alcoholfree6381 & @Alana Ronald: Yes, well, believing in fantasy is much more satisfying than believing in reality. That's true for almost everyone everywhere.
@@huizhechen3779 But souls don’t die. Only corporeal brings. I am a psychic and psychics are very sure there is existence beyond the change called death.
She asks: "why do you dislike me?" The answer: because you're loathsome.
Love all PD James series.....Roy Marsden is excellent, great actor.
The lady who played Angela Foley is Brenda Blethyn. She was great in this. I didn’t realize till later on that she plays the lead in Vera, one of my favorite more recent detective shows. Seeing her at an earlier stage in her career was a real thrill for me.
I’m dealing with Covid at the moment and have been binging watching Adam Dalgliesh mysteries to get my mind off how rotten I feel. Thanks for making these shows available. I remember watching them when I was young and they first were shown on PBS’s “Mystery” back in the 80’s and 90’s.
I'm doing the same thing for the same reason 🙄😂
Thank you for restoring the Dalgliesh series. I watched 1-5 in one sitting last night than finished it this afternoon. It's marvelous. My vote for best Brit-Detective series theme music: Creepy but mournful. Thanks again.
I think sometimes gay characters are rewritten as straight I bet Danica was originally a gay man , but that she really did screw around with all those men .
Yeah, I'd put the theme song right up there with the theme song from Inspector Morse.
That theme tune has haunted me for thirty-odd years. Glad to have found it again.
One day these old Fashion phones are going to fetch a fortune.…
Excellent episode. Some very good acting. Especially the performance given by the late Cyril Cusack as the slightly confused bereaved father - quite brilliant. Thoroughly riveted by the whole thing, thank you so much for bringing it to us. Not that it affected the enjoyment, but I did wonder at Dalgliesh seemingly so little affected by the death of his wife and child - or did I miss something?!
Love her books, loved Roy Marsden bringing Dalgleish to life! Same with Ruth Rendell and her books/tv movies. I enjoyed Dalgleish very much while it was in production and so happy to see him again via UA-cam! 👍 Thank 💖 You for this great uploaded series- with quality audio 👍 & visuals. Nice! 👍😀🇨🇦☘️
Best PD James/ITV Combo ever! Thanks for this gem of a production? 💎🙋🏼♀️👏
Absolutely stunning story and performances. I really had no idea until the end. And the surprising character insights... people you start out hating you end up loving and vice versa. Brilliant!
Ike 😢
Watched the whole series in one marathon session. Really good ! thank you 🤗🖒💯✔
- Noble series. Masterful story. Exquisite acting. -
Binge watched. Great!
Thank you so much for uploading. Roy Marsden is the perfect Dalgliesh.
Another great series of yours - Thanks again for the hours of entertainment..
Yes, it is rather strange that so few watched this. It's generally well played, ms James' stories quite good and the technical quality none too bad. Thank you for the upload.
It takes a special sort of person to read PD James. That is similar to the reading of John LeCarre. It’s easy to read Stephen King’s scary penny-dreadfuls (per Harold Bloom) and James Bond; rather than PD James or John LeCarre.
brilliant , well done mystery ,thank You for sharing
Thank you so much for uploading these detective series, wonderful to watch excellent in quality and sound. REALLY enjoyable, again thank you x
Thank you for these uploads - long time since I've been able to see Dalgliesh!
Great episode! I am surprised the corner did it!! Wow….i love these shows and others like this. I surf utube to try and fine murder mysteries similar to this. I’ve never seen it before, but I can’t stop watching… Lol…..they’re wonderful….
Hearing Ray Brooks' voice makes me want to listen to the Detective radio series all over again
Loved it. initially I couldn't figure why the 1st ep. was so slow paced; got more interesting and gripping as it went along...........80's tele: the best ! Thanks a heap for the upload.
A masterpiece like this starts with the writing and PD James' books need careful transfering to a script as the books were written to be read. Some wonderful performances by the cast here, enhanced by sound direction. A very great joy to watch and shows some of todays' efforts to be lacking
It is so hard to find comparative quality programs-acting......so good...so addictive.....here in North America. Everything here mediocre drama & acion-violence.....not this inductive attention grabing series.....I so enjoy English European Movies & series. Thank you for the uploads!
This was the first PDJames dramatized for American TV, somehow they edited it down to only six 1-hour shows on PBS. There are whole scenes here that I don't remember seeing originally. It's been so long that I didn't even remember who the murderer was--- the acting is wonderful for TV.
Well. Watched over two days. Inspector Dalgliesh, rhe philospher poet detective. And father confessor of the damned, too. Steady moral compass, affable severity and no nonsense character coming out his eyes! As for the rest, not Team Adam, at least six of the deadly sins, or vices if you prefer, on display: greed, envy, lust, vanity, pride and wrath. Pick your poison.
Barry Foster If I'm not mistaken he was once also star of a detective story called Van der Valk, not sure I spelled that right and I remember it being good and then there was of course his role in Frenzy. My sis and I used to stick out our tongues like one of the victims and have a laugh at that.. This is a good series and it's so nice how calm he is, American crime shows are often just over the top, but I do think it can be a little hard to keep track of all and it is a little strange sometimes but I like it:)
……saw him on stage in play, ‘An Inspector Calls’. He was wonderful! I got his autograph………
Thank you...I am loving your uploads.
This was an excellent, though not perfect, adaptation of the novel, as good as the adaptation of 'Shroud for a Nightingale'
Brilliant thankyou
If the doctor could have overcome his lust for a woman who was just playing with him, he wouldn't have had to become a murderer and lose the children he loved as a consequence. The tragedy the weakness of the flesh can bring!
Did you not see his marriage? Does it not occur to you that he needed tenderness -- that it wasn't "merely" lust? And I put "merely" in quote marks because Nature purposely gave us strong sex drives; more problems arise from people suppressing them than from people satisfying them.
Brenda Blethyn :) She was quite good then and I admire her for her performance als Vera in the crime drama series Vera now.
Her voice drives me crazy.
Bella Block I love Brenda Blethyn especially when speaking Welsh!!!!,!
Derek
Brenda B was very pretty when she was young. So different from the much older BB in "Vera."
Bella Block
thanks for the upload x
At 37.50 Dalgliesh tells Kerrison to "Get changed, William" - according to the credits, his name is not William, it's Henry. His son's name is William. It's a difficult, sensitive scene - someone must have decided that was the best take, even with the mistake - but I'm quite surprised they left it in.
He said, «get changed, will you?» surely.
@@paulgavin3603 Oops, hadn't thought of that - it does sound like "William" - but you're probably right. Thank you, for taking the time and trouble to point out my mistake - and for being polite about it!
@@Shinybuddies. There are many discrepancies between the spoken script and (if the Closed Caption text is used) the CC text. As you described, it is a sensitive scene, and the performance s top notch.
One day someone will write a mystery script in which the person suspected all along will have actually committed the murder. Rather than one of the persons least suspected of murder.
Well I suspected the murderer from the start!😂
Well that was a brilliant episode. And it all made sense too.
Thank you!!
Thanks heaps !
Shout out for the Police poster in the kids' bedroom!
So many secrets, and all dirty.
Realised that it's a Brenda Blethyn from the crime-drama series 'Vera' who plays Angela Foley in this production!
Look at Dr Kerrison's watch when he's talking to Dalgliesh (47:33) then again 5 seconds later - very strange
You've got a great eye for detail!
I also Love Brenda in the " Vera " series, she is so young here.
... and different again, ten seconds before that.
Who would have thought that Officer Doyle could be such a kind and generous fellow?
Great series. As an armchair cop speaking, how did they know that the tyres taken off the Cortina by the red faced Inspector had been bought from a specific place?
It was written in the book. The whole televised series was a blunder after blunder. The book is much better. Where did we see Dalgleish wife and child died. It jumped days and we never saw anything. It was all gush
The book is always much better. It ignites our imagination which is usually much richer. Some movie are better than others. Look at what they’ve done to Agatha Christie’s work. They make so many changes that you barely see what’s been done.
"Couldn't you have Loaned her the money?" See ? Justifiable to Keep Ann away from the children . I get that daddy has to go to prison but you must keep Ann away from the children .
It's been a long time since I've read the book, so perhaps these questions are addressed there and the screenwriter simply avoided them. #1 In the previous episode, the tires of Brenda's bicycle are slashed...Why did the killer do that? It brought Brenda to the chapel, but there's no reason that the killer would have wanted that. #2 Why would Dr. Max and Domenica conceal the identity of Domenica's lover?
1. The envious locals slashed the tires
2. They suspect each other of complicity? In one or both deaths
Thankyou
It's not a trade, it's a job! Ha, ha. That annoying short guy's finally nailed it.
An awful lot of cranks, indeed.
The idea that kerrison murdered is laughable..ruined the ending for me
PD James is just the best. Her books transcend the genre.
SPOILER ALERT.
I'm afraid the "1840" answer is too contrived - no-one plans to meet at such a specific time. And it would mean that the recipient would have to go to the chapel every day to get the information - very risky & impractical
Re: the time, I mostly agree (why not 1830 or 1845?), tho it *could* be a case of "Shift ends at 6 pm, takes 40 minutes to get there" or somesuch. With regard to the other: Keep in mind that the book this was based on was published in 1977, when extensions thruout the home *and* direct lines at work were far less common; I think that checking the chapel is plausible (if strained) -- plus, he wouldn't have checked it daily, given that they met probably once a week or so.
Those numbers usually are correlated with the songs in the Hymnals. Dalgliesh should have known that?? No biggy!! The songs are arranged to go along with the Scriptures read.
Great
That final scene with the killer was seriously ruined by an utterly flat unbelievable acting job. Ugh. Such a let down.
this was a tough story.
Suspense suffers and the interest of the story becomes rather diffuse from being spread and dragged out over 7 episodes. Still, it has its own, very English atmosphere as well as the "presence" of Roy Marsden as Commander Dalgliesh to hold it together.
Whilst what you say is quite true, since it is on you tube, one could watch one episode each night for 8 nights, or, indeed, 2 or 3 episodes per evening, thus preventing the ' dragging out ' of the suspense.
Thank you. Yes, there is that, of course.
Seven episodes does seem a bit excessive and drawn out....
As interesting as these series maybe ,they really are too drawn out. There are so many red herrings that one loses track of the first murder even.
agree.
OOps! A blooper! In the last episode, in the last couple of minutes, watch the doctor's wristwatch as he's sitting on the green bench...
❤❤❤
who slashed the girls bicycle tires...?
What I was wondering - loose end left untied.
I think it was her co-worker at the lab, the one who resented Lorrimer's bequest to further her education, the one who called her an heiress.
Thankyou! But what can I watch now please ???? hhahaha
Wow
Bradley looks like Geoffrey from Rainbow.
The portrayals of the people are very strong like when the young girl chews out the old woman. The older women then attempts to rope the 12 year a new one.
Why do you dislike me? Dalgliesh doesn’t answer demonstrating his remarkable restraint.
👏👏👏👏👏
Better than the book tbh
Does anyone know if this was filmed in 1982, even though this aired early in 1983?
Love the ending.
I did not recognize a very young Brenda Blethyn!
Enjoyed. A tad stretched out.
Does anyone know who narrated the scenes from previous episodes?
Semi-spoiler alert: I still think it was Nell.
being around her mother made her Not stable
So when everybody keeps talking about that old housekeeper being smelly it seems like an inside joke or some stereotype lost on me. Is it because she was a booze hound, or a bad taste joke about old people smell?
I think it's both -- and the threshold for age-ist bullshit was very high back then, so almost no one associated with the show would have thought twice about that offensive stereotype.
I have noticed it mentioned only once, during the girl´s angry outburst, and after all - she was a drinker, so she might have smelled bad.
@@goodstorylover Young detective in training opens window and housekeeper is miffed at what she perceives as a personal insult.
Dalgleish always has his hands in his pockets - is it because as an actor he doesn't know what to do with them
Such a tragic murderer .
33:26. "Go to court", you old bat? Uh ... yeah (eye rolling).
Maybe I missed something, owing to the long drawn out quality of this series, but who killed the first woman in the back of the car? Up to the point of Larimer's death, this is pretty obscure.
roxburyranger Her husband
Her husband and he committed suicide. They skip over it pretty briefly, but they talk about it being "a form of justice," and then you see them cover his body with a sheet.
Not one single character stood out as being a really likable character. Not one.
Sounds like a good production then.
The daughter is psychotic! Will be just like the mum when she grows up!🤣
The daughter might be psychotic, but the old woman yelling at the child that her father doesn't love her is horrible. That's why people become psychotic, I'd say. This scene with none of the adults reacting to the child abuse was very uncomfortable to watch.
Way too much screaming in this episode, especially by Dalgliesh himself
48:45 is that a crew member on the left?
Good catch! My guess is you've spotted the foot of the sound man, the lad who holds the "dead cat on a pole" mic above the actors. He does a tricky dance when they're moving!
@@bethwaltz2607 haha brilliant description. I’ll only be able to think that when I see those mics now 😁
Inspector Morse????
Can you imagine this as Inspector Morse, drawn over seven hours instead of two?
Why did Kerrison have Middlemass' lab coat?
he put it on to climb down the wall of the lab to escape without being seen. He nwore the coat to avoid getting fibers from his own clothes on the brick wall. He was a pathologist after all and would know that much from being involved in many police investigations.
John Drake -- At 43:56, "I couldn't risk dragging my own clothes against the drainpipe or the stonework." (Had his clothes snagged and been examined later on, he would have been unable to explain the snagging). I think the other person's response is incorrect, because there was no reference to any fibers taken from the outside of the building -- if fibers had been taken and examined, they would have pointed to Middlemass. Forensic science was a lot less advanced in 1977 (when the novel was written) than it is now, in 2018, and it wouldn't surprise me to know that SOCO didn't even try to pull fibers from the exterior back then or even in 1983, when this aired.
Matthew -- Listen at 43:56 -- nothing about "not being seen."
Too many hysterical women and kids. Subtitles necessary.
I remember seeing it at the time and loving it. Timing was suspenseful then, now its ok, get a move on. The characters are still great but over emoted as per today. Don't think I could sit through another 6 episodes.
All these inconsistencies ... a woman writer. However, excellent acting. Enjoyed.
Well acted series but Far too long… It would never be in seven episodes if it was made in 2021
Ultimately disappointing. Everyone seemed to act as badly as possible and for sketchy reasons. Not wanting the wife to have custody of the children. Really? And what happens, now? Everyone acting out of selfishness and self-interest. No heroes here, among the "respected" medical profession. I've noticed a tendency of Rendell's to ascribe the basest of motives to her characters.
Nice to see Malcolm Terris whom I so enjoyed in the series - "When the Boat Comes In" as well as a young and slender Brenda Blethyn long before "Vera" and Geoffrey Palmer as a far less secure character than his well known role opposite Judi Dench.
This was the worst piece of tripe I have ever seen. I love British murder mystery's, that's why this seemed so surprising bad. The over acting was ridiculous. The dialogue was infantile. The characters were over the top stereo types. The directing was appalling, like the overly long camera shots on a characters face when they say something that's a lie or as a means to trick the viewer into thinking who done it.There were so many unnecessary scenes that could easily not have been shown. Even the theme music was bland and disappointing. Seven episodes that really could have been done in three. The ONLY reason I watched this to the end was because of a glimmer of hope it might get better. It didn't ! P.S. It was Brenda Blethyn's voice that made me realize who she was. I have never seen her that young before.