Jack Taylor: Set 1 (2010 – 2011)/The Politician’s Wife (1995/Letterboxed DVD vs. Anamorphically Enhanced Reissue DVD)/Springhill: Series One (1996/Acorn DVDs)

 

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

 

 

Note: This is an update of a previous review of The Politician’s Wife with two new titles added…

 

 

Acorn Media has issued three very different titles this time out including one from a while ago we really enjoyed…

 

 

Jack Taylor: Set 1 (2010) stars Iain Glen (Harry Brown, Game Of Thrones, Downton Abbey) as yet another outrageous breaking-the-rules police officer and he is gruff, et al, but this series of telefilms based on the Ken Bruen novel series is just really a police procedural in classic Sweeney clothing as the show plays it too safe for its own good and is one despite its efforts as the grittiness is usually a joke.  The three telefilm mysteries are:

 

The Guards

The Pikemen

The Magdalen Martyrs

 

 

They offer at least educated teleplays and the actual mysteries are so-so, but this is getting issued after a few years because Glen is enough to make it more than a curio for more educated and/or adept viewers.  Glen actually debuted in the role in The Guards a year before, but that installment is not present.  Still, unless a big change was made, after that debut, you pretty much get the same approach and atmosphere per TV movie.  You could do worse, but if you are really interested, you might want to give it a look.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a little soft throughout with limited motion blur and some limited color, while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has no real surrounds, but is competently recorded and edited.  Photo Galleries for each mystery are the only extra.

 

 

There have been stories (fact and fiction) told about political scandals and sexual affairs before, but one of the best is the surprisingly impressive British TV import, The Politician’s Wife (1995).  The mini-series is split into three smart, powerful, impacting episodes that also show the stages of change that take place.

 

Juliet Stevenson is impressive as Flora Matlock, who discovers that her Tory party husband Duncan (Trevor Eve) is having an affair with a younger woman (Minnie Driver of Good Will Hunting, ever underrated), which is in itself filled with wild sex and exposes the politician as having issues.  While the affair is revealed, the actual details are not, with Flora discovering the details through secret tapings supplied to her by a sympathetic reporter.  Things are worse than even she realizes, then things start to turn into new directions in the episodes that follow.  They are:

 

Stand By Him

Echo Chamber

Body Politics

 

 

The first show is a great set up for what follows, digging as deep as situation as possible.  The way the concluding shows work it out is very impressive.  Paul Milne is the writer and does an ace of a job on what would have otherwise been melodramatic and likely predictable.  Most such stories just carbon copy the latest headlines and try to pass it off as quality storytelling, but The Politician’s Wife offers much more and is a mature, smart, adult work that could have been a bigger commercial hit.  Now on DVD, it should find that bigger audience, but not as much as I had hoped, so I am glad for the DVD reissue.  Maybe a Blu-ray is next?

 

The original DVD edition of Wife was a letterboxed 1.66 x 1 frame that seemed slightly zoomed in on, in a 1.5 to 1.6 X 1 kind of way, but the new 1.78 X 1 anamorphically enhanced version is softer, has more motion blur and may even be missing more screen area.  Both can still looks good, though some shot choices occasionally undermine the narrative.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo in both cases has healthy Pro Logic surrounds and is decent, with clear dialogue and nice sound design, but the new reissue is lossier.  The only extras in both cases are text cast filmographies and a background essay by Milne.  The punch of the three shows is more than enough to recommend you run out and get your hands on this show.

 

 

Finally we have Springhill: Series One (1996), a brief-lived series from the men behind hits like Shameless and the original U.K. Queer As Folk (both reviewed elsewhere about how the lives of the dysfunctional Freeman family are slowly interrupted by the mysterious Eva Morrigan (Katharine Rogers) who might have evil ideas and even be supernaturally evil, but it is hard to tell.

 

Over the 26 half-hours on four DVDs, Eva is going after mother/wife Liz (Gilly Coman) and will take her family down with her if she could.  Supernatural or not (and I do not like the oversimple theme song very much), it is much of what we have seen before in the drama, soap opera and like genres which is why you might not have heard of it.  Russell T, Davies is best-known these days for his work on the revived Doctor Who, but the approach here is different and offers nothing new despite the best =efforts of a cast of likable unknowns.  This should have broken more of the narrative rules that the likes of the classic U.S. sitcom/soap opera satire Soap (reviewed elsewhere on this site) did, but tries for the revenge line and that is why it does not reach its potential.  At least it is an ambitious show, so those curious might still want to see it.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is also a little soft throughout with limited motion blur but color that is not bad, while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has here too has no real surrounds, but is competently recorded and edited.  There are no extras.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo