Oliver’s Travels (British Mini-Series)
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C- Episodes: C+
Alan Plater has been writing for British TV since the much
noted Z Cars back in 1962. He
even had an interesting stint of theatrical film involvements in the 1970s (The
Virgin & The Gypsy, Juggernaut, All Things Bright &
Beautiful) between his long string of British TV work, but he kept coming
back to the Mystery genre and never shied away from politics. Having written teleplays involving the likes
of name detectives like Inspector Maigret and Sherlock Holmes, as well as the
exceptional British telefilm A Very British Coup (reviewed elsewhere on
this site), it makes sense why a he would get a project like Oliver’s
Travels greenlighted. No, this is
not professional cook Jamie Oliver going nuts in the kitchen again.
Alan Bates and Sinead Cusack co-star as a couple
interested in a strange puzzle of a mystery and each other. A person has gone missing, so the professor
and policewoman suddenly out of their jobs decide to take a trip around the
country to find out why. The five parts
tries to be Hart To Hart as The Rockford Files, but is
just too deconstructionist for its own good, and the leads have odd chemistry
on top of this, which makes for a strange program all around. It is not that their wittiness is smug, but
I was never totally convinced by the banter or the situation. The cast includes character actors familiar
to the genre and the explicitly comic Mollie Sugden is also thrown in for good
measure. Even she made me think of a
makeshift Nancy Walker. At least Jamie
Oliver did not show up to cook, but then Plater could have had someone had him
some paper towels. That is the kind of
out of nowhere humor we get throughout Oliver’s Travels, but it is not a
trip this critic will take again. At
least it tried to be different, but The Avengers it is not either.
The 1.33 X 1 full frame image is not bad for a production
from the mid-1990s and is from a clean source.
It looks filmed for the most part, but the look between indoors and
outdoors is consistent. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic surrounds and makes the series additionally
engaging. The only extra is text bio/filmography
information. Oliver’s Travels is
simply something different and that may be enough for some to want to check
into it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
