The Ambassador (BFS Set One/British TV)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C     Episodes: B-

 

 

Pauline Collins has done comedy for so long (Shirley Valentine, Upstairs, Downstairs) that for her to appear in something serious is a change.  With its For Your Eyes Only-like opening when a ship sinks unexpectedly and the implications are more than it would seem, BFS has issued the first 6 of the 12 episodes of The Ambassador (1997). Collins plays the title character, England’s ambassador to Ireland.  Besides and IRA issues, she’s got her own life to consider and her high standards will turn out not to be compatible with more corruption than expected.

 

As a Spy genre piece to the extent it is, this was awkward and not totally convincing, though it is a little melodramatic.  As a drama and even a mystery, it works much better and Collins is actually very good, proving she is even more talented then we all knew she already was.  I like Collins and was pleasantly surprised to see this was a project she starred in, as the title character tries to juggle all of this and get over the loss of her husband.  The teleplays are exceptionally intelligent and written by Russell Lewis, who has some good work on both Inspector Morse and Kavanagh Q.C. under his belt.  The material has limits and I can see why they limited the number of shows, which makes it limited run regular TV series.  It will be more interesting to see where the rest of the shows go in the next set.  We’ll see how they build on them.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is good, with consistent color and more clarity than not, shot nicely on location and clean copies of each show.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has good Pro Logic surrounds, which make the shows more involving.  The only extras are text cast profiles and trivia on DVD 1.  This is a 3 DVD set.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo