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98 of 99 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For mystery buffs, the most significant DVD release this year, May 27, 2006
"Murder Rooms" consists of five episodes, starring Ian Richardson as Dr. Joseph Bell, the historical personage on whom Arthur Conan Doyle allegedly based Sherlock Holmes; with Dr. Watson based on Doyle himself. The 116-minute first episode ("Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle, The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes") was a BBC series pilot released in January 2000. In "Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle...," Robin Laing starred as the young Doyle in medical school. This pilot has been available in NTSC for two years (see Amazon's listing) and IS NOT INCLUDED IN THIS PACKAGE. In the remaining four 90-minute episodes comprising this set (on BBC in September-October 2001), episode chronology begins three years later, Charles Edwards assuming Laing's role as the young, idealistic but adult Doyle with his own medical practice. Information on source books, author David Pirie, screen credits, histories, plot synopses and cast are available at murder-rooms.com
FOR BEST APPRECIATION, ONE MUST TREAT THIS SERIES AS AN INTEGRATED FIVE-PART, EIGHT-HOUR MINISERIES, beginning with the pilot "Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle..." setting the backdrop against which the other four, described IN ORDER below, play out. Missing "Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle...," this reviewer STRONGLY RECOMMENDS you purchase this set now and set it aside until that pilot can be seen. In "The Patient's Eyes," a black-shrouded cyclist repeatedly stalks a lady patient cycling to Dr. Doyle eye appointments through eerie wooded terrain, leading to a mysterious abandoned house, love-interest conflicts, betrayal, and murder. (There are striking scene similarities to "The Solitary Cyclist.") In "The Photographer's Chair," a series of murder victim corpses bearing strange marks lead to mesmerism, spiritualism, séances, apparitions, erotic mutilation, daguerreotype photography, and genuinely chilling moments. In "The Kingdom of Bones," the publicized spectacle of unwrapping an apparent Egyptian mummy for scientific study yields highly unexpected results leading to suicide, dinosaur bones, gypsies, kidnapping, attempted murder, multiple murders, and political terrorism. And in "The White Knight Stratagem," Doyle and Bell come to a near falling-out involving a Dickensian business climate leading to suicide and murder; with a curious chess enigma hovering over everything. This last episode concludes the miniseries and should be viewed last.
These adaptations get this reviewer's highest commendation, being at least the equal (or better?) of the David Suchet / Jeremy Brett adaptations in their prime. The general tone is exceedingly dark, uncompromising, and far more menacing than the light-hearted Poirot-Holmes adaptations. (The atmospherics remind this reviewer of that excellent film "From Hell.") Excepting as discussed below, nothing in these episodes is short of first-class: plots, incredible principal and supporting cast, direction, cinematography depicting 1880s Victorian Edinburgh, hauntingly mysterious musical score, period mood, and the appallingly brutal times with modern medicine in infancy. Sound is fine; extraneous background noise is nil; diction is clear with no accent barriers.
So superior is MPI's production that current PAL DVD owners may want to buy the NTSC release anyway! The widescreen 16x9 anamorphic picture is excellent, with night scenes sharp yet still mysterious. This reviewer doesn't know how the original episodes were recorded, but suspects that the widescreen image seen here was likely achieved by slicing off top and/or bottom portions of an original 4x3 TV image: some close-up shots have head-tops suspiciously out of range, a typical symptom. But such trimming is a small price for what one sees on an HDTV system as contrasted to the original PAL release. Unlike that release, MPI also provides both running time display and chapter breaks; and the periodic PAL scene blackout interruptions (presumably omitting advertisements) are gone, greatly enhancing the narrative flow. There are two DVDs contained in one keep-case with an inner leaf. Each DVD has two episodes on the same side with full menu accessibility.
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87 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential for any mystery lover's collection, March 16, 2004
American viewers may not realize that this offering is but the first in a series (the only one available in NTSC format so far, the rest being in PAL) called the "Murder Rooms" series. Subsequent titles include "The Photographer's Chair", "The White Knight Stratagem", "The Kingdom of Bones", "The Patient's Eyes", and perhaps more (?), starring the inimitable Ian Richardson. For those who like David Suchet's Poirot series, and Jeremy Brett's Holmes series, this series is absolutely stunning and mandatory!! Any good DVD mystery library is severely deficient without these episodes! This reviewer has finally thrown in the towel and purchased complete PAL-compatible equipment since there are so many such riches in the British PAL/DVD world that are simply unattainable in the USA. This matter could be the subject of a truly wild rant by this reviewer, the NTSC available-title crap-factor index being so high while so much other great material on both sides of the pond goes begging! This episode deals with the young Arthur Conan Doyle (Robin Laing) as a medical student, who must perforce, with considerable trepidation, take a mandatory course from a certain Dr. Joseph Bell (Ian Richardson). It seems Dr. Bell has a notorious reputation amongst the medical students as a quite idiosyncratic, difficult and perhaps too challenging tutor and instructor. In this opening sequence, several of Dr. Bell's students are mystified by what they perceive as his strange nocturnal disappearances. One of them, the young Doyle and protagonist of this episode, surreptitiously follows Bell one night on such an errand. The result is that Bell catches the young Doyle in the act and subsequently "drafts" him as his "clerk" into these night-time escapades. It seems the good doctor, as a master of logic, deduction and diagnosis, is trying to unravel various crimes for the Crown which he feels are getting short shrift by those charged to investigate such matters. This story follows the unraveling of several inter-related murders by an apparent serial murderer. The real-life Dr. Joseph Bell is alleged as the historical personage on whom Sir Arthur Conan Doyle modeled his Sherlock Holmes character, with the young Doyle himself being the archetypal Watson. Ian Richardson is truly superb as the good doctor, a pioneer forensic pathologist who took up crime investigation and related matters in his free time when he wasn't busy teaching during the day. This episode, set in 1878 Edinburgh, is extremely rich in Victorian period lore, full of subplots like the homeless, the struggling women's rights movement, the sub-citizen status given to prostitutes' rights, and police incompetence. This reviewer is not familiar with Sir Arthur's biography (but see below), so cannot judge the factual merits of the material presented here. But such accuracy would be totally irrelevant to the enjoyment of this rousing good story. B.F.S. Video's color picture and Dolby digital sound are excellent for this BBC production. There is a great set of easily accessed and read special feature stills, including a multi-screen Doyle biography, a list of his selected works, multi-screen cast profiles, and multi-screen production notes. The 116-minute production is highly recommended along with the rest of the series if you can get them!
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68 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not by Conan Doyle, but excellent..., September 27, 2003
Aurthur Conan Doyle, the author who "created" Sherlocke Holmes was a Scotsman who studied at the Medical College in Edinburgh in the late 19th Century, and became a physician in real life (was he Watson?). Ian Richardson plays a top professor at the college. Some speculate that the Richardson character was the basis for Sherlock Holmes. The professor (Richardson) is called to help the police when foul play is suspected in a murder investigation. Several good tales are told in this series involving the death of a woman student at the medical college, the betrayal of a married woman, and seances with a medium. I found the tales as fascinating if not more fascinating than the "original" Holmes tales because they provide some insight into the forensics of the period. This forensic detail is much more than you'd find in a Holmes story...but just what would have been available in 19th Century Scotland when people were beginning to think about the application of science to crime solving. Several interesting actors populate the stories including Richardson who starred in the trilogy "to play the king...the final cut" about the Prime Minister of the UK.
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