7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
DCI Tennison seizes the opportunity to head a murder investigation after years of being passed over by her male supervisors.
Starring: Helen Mirren, Tom Bell (I), John Benfield, John Bowe (I), Richard Hawley (I)Drama | 100% |
Mystery | 13% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
(For a general overview of Prime Suspect, please see the review of the Complete Collection.) First Broadcast: April 7-8, 1991 (U.K.); January 23, 1992 (U.S.) Audiences on both sides of the Atlantic were knocked out when they first met Helen Mirren's Detective Chief Inspector (or "DCI") Jane Tennison. She barreled across their TV screens and into their living rooms with the same determination with which she strides into her chief's office demanding to be assigned to her first murder investigation after idling for eighteen months in the backwaters of London's Metropolitan Police (a/k/a Scotland Yard). Tennison knows that the assignment will put her under a microscope and draw enormous hostility from "the lads" under her command, but she doesn't care. She wants the job anyway. One of the mysteries that makes Tennison such a fascinating character is why she wants it so badly, despite the persistent opposition and the grim circumstances with which police work daily confronts her. It's a question that intrigued series creator Lynda La Plante and that Mirren would continue to explore throughout the next six series of Prime Suspect. La Plante wrote Series 1, Series 3 and the story for Series 2 of Prime Suspect, after which other writers took over. Both the character of Tennison and the story of Series 1 were heavily influenced by La Plante's interviews with DCI Jackie Malton, who appears in the retrospective documentary included with Series 7. When Series 1 was initially shown in America, La Plante gave an interview in which she recounted with satisfaction the experience of polling her friends after the first part of the series had aired. Not one of them, she said, correctly guessed the identity of the killer.
For a discussion of Series 1's reformatted 1.78:1 aspect ratio, please see the Video section of The Complete Collection review. The extra screencaps with this review include sample comparisons between the Blu-ray and Acorn Media's previous DVD release of Series 1, which retained the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. (Note that the DVD image has been slightly squeezed; this was not uncommon on DVD to compensate for overscan.) The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray opens with the disclaimer quoted in the Complete Collection review. The image quality on the two parts of Series 1 is variable. When it's good, it's remarkably so, with sharp and detailed clarity and unusually vibrant colors for a production design that is deliberately drab and downbeat. When the image weakens, detail gets fuzzier, edges soften and grain becomes more pronounced. Fortunately, these passages are the exception, not the rule, and they don't last for too long. As has already been noted in several online commentaries, the image on the Blu-ray of Season 1 is considerably brighter than what has previously been presented on DVD, but I don't share the assumption that the DVD is an accurate or definitive reference. While the DVD's darkness has been justified as a kind of "film noir" style, Prime Suspect was never intended as film noir. It was supposed to be a realistic depiction of police work and was praised as such by London's Metropolitan Police when it was first broadcast. It is just as likely that the darkness of the DVD image resulted from an inaccurate transfer that also oversaturated certain colors and, in some scenes, created an ugly, "granular" appearance. That being said, there are indications of overbrightening in some scenes. In the exhibition boxing match, some of the tuxedos look a little more charcoal gray then black. I disagree, however, that the critical scene in a garage (screenshots 14 & 15) has been brightened beyond the bounds of realism, given the setting's realistic sources of light. (Blu-ray and DVD screenshots are included both here and at another website, which questioned the Blu-ray's handling of the scene.) Between the overhead skylight and the daylight from the door through which the detectives entered, the lighting is accurate. It has to be bright enough for Tennison's exclamation ("Oh my God!") to make sense, when she catches sight of something inside the garage, because the DVD was so dark that she wouldn't have been able to see anything at all. Even though Series 1 contains a number of grainy shots, other portions are sufficiently smooth to suggest the application of some light noise reduction, which would not be surprising with elements of this age and quality. If any has been applied, the work has been done judiciously, leaving no motion artifacts and no apparent reduction in detail. A BD-50 has provided enough room for the compressionist to accommodate both parts of the 213-minute program without noticeable errors.
Series 1's stereo track is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, but there's not much stereo separation to be heard. Prime Suspect made spare use of the mournful score for strings by Stephen Warbeck (an Oscar winner for Shakespeare in Love). Its soundtrack is dominated by dialogue and key sound effects: telephones, background chatter, traffic, etc. The mix is functional and effective but not especially full-bodied. Some of the police jabber in and around the squad room is only semi-intelligible, but that is probably by design. In the first part, there are a few moments at scene changes where the sound drops out for a split second, then immediately returns.
No extras are included with Series 1. At startup the disc plays a trailer for Vera, which can be skipped with the top menu button. (On my player, the chapter forward button did not work for this one disc.)
There is something special about Tennison's first case, which is no doubt why the show's producers chose to revisit it in Series 4 of Prime Suspect. The case set a pattern for the show, right down to the surprise ending, but the show would never again generate such excitement from the sheer focus on investigative minutia. Like Tennison herself, Series 1 rides a wave of exhilaration that always accompanies something truly innovative. In later years, both the character and the series would find themselves exploring dark crevices of the police bureaucracy that often work against Tennison's crusader's impulse. (David Simon staked out the same turf on the American side in The Wire.) Series 1 will always remain one of Tennison's finest moments, because everything was still new.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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