A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

I reviewed the first season of Broadchurch at the end of August.  Each season runs eight episodes long.  In addition to the primary players who return from last season, some powerhouse actors join the cast for the second season.  Marianne Jean-Baptist and Charlotte Rampling join the cast as defense counsel and prosecuting attorney respectively and Eve Myles and James D'Arcy play pivotal roles as the main suspects in the Sandbrook case.  The third season will be released on DVD in September.  I'm not sure how season three and its respective review will go down.  These two reviews had the advantage of being written upon the second viewing of both seasons.  I won't see the third season until I get the DVD. Where we left off at the end of season one: The arrest and charging of Joe Miller, husband of D.S. Ellie Miller, as the confessed murderer of Daniel Latimer sent shock waves through Broadchurch and shattered the Miller and Latimer families. The s...

Broadchurch is a British TV series trilogy that stars David Tennant (of Dr. Who fame) and Olivia Coleman (you may also know her from The Night Manager ) as well as Jodie Whittaker (the new Dr. Who ) and Andrew Buchan.  If you watch a lot of British TV, you may recognize these actors's names as well as a lot of the supporting cast.  I watched the first season of Broadchurch a few years ago when it aired in the U.S. on BBC America, which is how I also watched the second season.  The long wait for the third and final season is over, so I decided to re-watch the first two seasons before I watch the third season.  I'm reviewing them as I watch them again.  Also there are spoilers, so a word of caution before you keep reading. In Broadchurch season one when twelve year old Daniel Latimer's body is found dumped on the shoreline of Broadchurch, the ensuing police investigation uncovers the town residents' secrets and threatens to rip both the Latimer family and ...

By now you may have realized that I'm a sucker for a British TV show.  Period drama, Jane Austen adaptation, both of these or none of these, it doesn't matter.  I branched out recently into Australian TV shows when one of the libraries got Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on DVD.  I'm currently watching the first season of that show. Suspects is a British cop procedural drama; series one and two come in the same case.  "Filmed from an eye witness perspective," it also features improvised dialogue.  The latter makes the show feel like a reality TV show except it does not have in camera confessionals.  It's a gritty, realistic series that features brutal crimes; and, due to its improvised dialogue and eye witness perspective, it feels quite different from scripted dramas. The show follows three detectives: Detective Inspector Martha Bellamy, Detective Sergeant Jack Weston, and Detective Constable Charlie Steele.  In the first season each episode...

Grantchester stars James Norton and Robson Green and is adapted from The Grantchester Mysteries series by James Runcie.  I have previously reviewed the first three books of the series on the blog, and I'm currently reading the fourth book.  A fifth one was released this summer.  I didn't review the first season of Grantchester .  But now I'm reviewing the second season of Grantchester because I have things to say. You can view the series without reading the books.  I think they are far enough apart to be considered separate entities essentially.  The TV series largely diverges from the books in both story/plot line and character story.  As with the first series, the second one does use some of the mysteries from the second book.  However, they change a lot in the mystery and the story. There's a season long story arc in which a murder investigation, trial, and subsequent execution is followed that strains Sidney's friendships with both D. ...

Happy Valley is a British TV series that stars Sarah Lancashire as a police sergeant upholding the law in a West Yorkshire town that is losing the battle with drugs.  The series may be called Happy Valley , but no one is happy.  And several people become downright miserable throughout the course of events depicted in these six episodes. Kevin Weatherill, blindly indignant when his boss Nevison Gallagher rebuffs his request for a raise, hatches a plot to kidnap Ann, Nevison's daughter, in order to pocket the ransom money.  You know because kidnap for ransom is an excellent way to raise the money needed to send your daughter to an elite school.  In a fit of ill-advised shock, Kevin enlists the local druglord, Ashley, to run the scheme.  And now there is no turning back from this very slippery slope to hell. Unfortunately for Kevin and just about everyone else involved but mostly for Ann, Ashley in turn enlists his local hired lads, Louis and Tommy Lee Royce...

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie is the first of the book series from which the British TV series, Grantchester is adapted.  Both major and minor details of characters, relationships, and mysteries change in the adaptation from book to screen.  Having watched the series before reading this book, I can say that both book and TV show are equally engrossing. Shadow of Death is not a novel, instead it's a collection of short stories that take place successively over the course of a year that follows Sidney Chambers, the bachelor vicar of the Anglican parish in Grantchester near Cambridge in England; these particular stories are set in 1953 and 1954.  In the book Inspector Keating and Chambers are already friends and acquaintances when Chambers is called upon by a mourner who believes that the suicide of their loved one was not a suicide at all.  Unfortunately once Chambers begins meddling in solving mysteries and crimes, these matters encroac...

This is the conclusion of the reviews for the mini-series The Crimson Field .  By the conclusion of these two episodes, most everyone's secrets will be revealed to the audience if not to other characters. Episode 5 This is the episode in which secrets are revealed for better or worse (for some it is definitely for worse).  Major Ballard is a rather unpleasant man with a secret that jeopardizes both his life and the men he serves with on the front lines.   Luckily the matron easily ferrets it out and turns him in to Lt. Col. Brett to confirm it.  Meanwhile Ballard rather enjoys taunting the matron in order to tease out her secret that was alluded to in the last episode by Sister Quayle.  Sister Quayle is mercifully absent throughout the episode having been suddenly and unwillingly dispatched back to England for a breather a.k.a. some soul searching to determine whether she can continue to serve under Matron Carter.  (If Sister Quayle cannot serve under...

Episode 3 Major Yellin has it in for Captain Gillan because Gillan is Scottish, has a lovely accent, and is uncivilized and barbarous by virtue of his low, Scottish birth.  Yellin is so determined in his campaign of harassment that he interferes with the care of one of Gillan's patients, and the two men almost come to blows over dinner, but Yellin backs down and runs with his tail between his legs to file a complaint with Lt. Col. Brett, who runs the field hospital.  Luckily Capt. Hesketh-Thorne has Gillan's back and is waiting up at dawn for Brett at his office to defend Gillan.  Meanwhile, Matron Carter cares for a man headed for certain death following his court martial for cowardice (though it's uncertain whether his injuries actually were self inflicted).  And Nurse Livesey's secret is (half) revealed to the wrong person.  While Flora ferrets out the orderly corporal's secret and warns him to be careful. Episode 4 Just when Captain Gillan finally ar...

Last week I introduced the mini-series The Crimson Field ; please scroll down to catch up if you haven't already read it.  This week I'm writing (ranting) about the first two episodes.  If you've seen the mini-series, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought about it! Episode 1 Rosalie, Kitty, and Flora arrive at the British Army field hospital outpost after a long journey.  The British Army nurses who welcome them are rather put out because these are civilian nurse volunteers with only a few months of training.  They need help, but they want Army nurse help that is properly trained not civilian volunteer help that isn't!  Kitty's immediately at odds with both Rosalie and the British Army nurse Matron Carter because Kitty has no patience for protocol, rules, or any other petty business, and she'll tell you so too.  Flora also runs afoul of Matron Carter, who, in order to save face in front of Sister Quayle, punishes Flora by assigning h...

The Crimson Field is a British mini-series that aired on PBS recently.  The BBC commissioned the mini-series as part of its special programming in observance of the centenary of World War I.  Apparently the series did not receive good reviews in the British press.  And I guess it didn't get very good ratings either because it's not coming back for another season.  I've heard that some people have started a petition to get the BBC to bring it back, but I don't think that's going to happen. I think I mentioned this program or other programs set during World War I in my review of ANZAC Girls .  At first I wasn't going to review The Crimson Field because I just reviewed another mini-series and also TCF is six episodes long.  However, after viewing the first episode, I had opinions, and I need to vent about some characters.  So now I'm reviewing it.  I'll be splitting it into three more posts, each of which will cover two episodes. While ANZAC...