It is difficult to give an unbiased opinion of this show, for as an adaptation of Gaudy Night, it stinks. There is none of the subtlety or wit of Dorothy Sayers' dialog, and much of the plot is a shambles. Does it make good tv if one hasn't read the book - I couldn't say.
Well, what are the problems? First, the opening. We hear voices upraised in anger, the sound of a shot, then someone's coffin lowered into the ground. There's no establishing time period, no nothing. It could be the day before the events that are to come, for all we know. No grieving people shown over the coffin (from a suitable distance so we wouldn't recognize anyone), nothing to make us care who this person might have been, or what it has got to do with the rest of the story.
Then there's the bloopers. The Warden of the college wants to ask Harriet Vane to come investigate the happenings in college, so she gathers together all the dons and asks their opinion! And yet a little later on Harriet is asking questions and pretending that she's merely there to help Miss Lydgate with her research. (In the book, it is to the students alone that she pretends to be other than what she is).
Wimsey as played by Edward Petherbridge is quite good, if a little old for the part (in closeups at least) and he's given a quite gratuitous scene on a train going into Germany. If they must give him more screen time, why not more screen time in Oxford?
The actress who played Harriet didn't catch my fancy, and she wasn't given much to do in investigating the crimes. Sayers' dialog was replaced in most cases by bad dialog from the scriptwriter.
I'll check the other videos out from the library - thank goodness I didn't have to buy this one!
Well, what are the problems? First, the opening. We hear voices upraised in anger, the sound of a shot, then someone's coffin lowered into the ground. There's no establishing time period, no nothing. It could be the day before the events that are to come, for all we know. No grieving people shown over the coffin (from a suitable distance so we wouldn't recognize anyone), nothing to make us care who this person might have been, or what it has got to do with the rest of the story.
Then there's the bloopers. The Warden of the college wants to ask Harriet Vane to come investigate the happenings in college, so she gathers together all the dons and asks their opinion! And yet a little later on Harriet is asking questions and pretending that she's merely there to help Miss Lydgate with her research. (In the book, it is to the students alone that she pretends to be other than what she is).
Wimsey as played by Edward Petherbridge is quite good, if a little old for the part (in closeups at least) and he's given a quite gratuitous scene on a train going into Germany. If they must give him more screen time, why not more screen time in Oxford?
The actress who played Harriet didn't catch my fancy, and she wasn't given much to do in investigating the crimes. Sayers' dialog was replaced in most cases by bad dialog from the scriptwriter.
I'll check the other videos out from the library - thank goodness I didn't have to buy this one!