Reviews

There are far too many story lines, leading off in all directions that seem to go nowhere. Poor old. Jamie Winter slogging through the woods in his best shoes, would have been given a right telling off by Vera. The series needs to be brought back to one hour to tighten the whole thing up and concentrate the story. More does not equal better. Fleur hitches up her wellies and struggles on with the ever rising flood of bodies, doing a wonderful job keeping the men under control. I first saw her in the first episodes of Bergerac and I don't think she's changed a bit. In tonight's episode the main baddie, Lyra Kaine, rang a bell with me - then I remembered, the last time I had seen her was in 'Dinnerladies' telling you there were two ways to get to Urmston!

This episode is set in 1954, as shown by the date on the painting. However Father Brown is seen aiding Sam in a first world war trench, which was in the time span 1914 -1918, meaning at least thirty six years previous to this episode. That means both Father Brown and Sam would be thirty six years older than that incident meaning both would be in their late fifties. Sort your timelines out chaps. Overall an interesting episode, Nice to see Inspector Valentine back replacing the ghastly previous inspector. Lady Devine looks like a painted puppet, please tone down the violent make-up, she would look much better!

This was a very poor episode. For a start we were treated to the 'fake gunshot' scenario which was played out in an earlier episode. Then we had the nonsense about the pistol described many times as being of a 'small calibre'. It was a .38 which is at the larger end of the calibre scale. The whole thing was obviously rushed to get it out for the 100th episode and it shows. What were the two ladies doing in France, and whose baby was it? The whole episode was very poor in comparison to the recent ones and it was a shame it was forced out just to be the 100th episode. Please take your time and give us the quality we have come to expect.

The story about the sailors cap is interesting but with a few embellishments by grandfather. The cap during wartime would be black not white. The story is based on the Laconia sinking, but the Laconia was a Mail ship not a naval warship, so there would be no RN personnel on board. The U-boat that sank the Laconia did surface to pick up survivors but was then sunk by American aircraft.

Living just outside Carmarthen, I was interested in this film to see how it treated the story. Although based on fact, I found the treatment to be more pantomime than reality. We have the principal boy. Samantha Morton, being wooed by Prince Charming, Owain Yeoman (leaving his role as Rigsby in the Mentalist behind) fighting off the machinations of the evil and corrupt Prince, the Mayor, and of course not forgetting the bumbling police officers. The problem is these are real, identifiable people and how they will react to being portrayed in such an unflattering way is best left to the imagination, however if a number of lawsuits arise I won't be surprised.

The problem with filming in real locations is they always get it wrong, one minute you are passing Dryslwyn Castle, the next you are in King Street. Undoubtedly the highlight is the audience singing along with the film 'How Green Was My Valley'. Interesting but ultimately left me with a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

The worst thing about this film was the sound, I doubt I could hear one word in fifty clearly - except for the effing this and effing that. It gave a very poor idea of what was actually going on, were the people in the ops room on the base or miles away? Why was the camp so spread out - there seemed to be no viable, defendable perimeter. The mortar was placed in a static position and never moved or shielded, and yet it was the best defence they had. Ammunition was in short supply yet they seemed to loose off thousands of rounds at nothing in particular. A mixed up messy film that seemed to show how not to build a defendable base.

I love these types of show, watching skilled craftsmen repairing and restoring beautiful objects. This is not that kind of show. People bring in various articles with great history and hand them over to lunatics who destroy them and produce rubbish. I have just watched an episode where a man brought in a quantity of gold and diamond rings owned by his mother. They were chopped up, melted down, thus destroying all the history, hallmarks etc, and the woman produced something that looked like a squashed sardine can. Absolutely ghastly.