Customer Reviews

Waking the Dead: The Complete Season One and Pilot Episode

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I first saw this show on BBCAmerica about 6 years ago and was instantly a fan. I am a fan of shows such as CSI:, CSI:Miami, and had seen some of the Cold Case episodes. I do agree with the reviewer above that the episodes are a little slower than the shows here in the US, but Waking the Dead has such great actors and the characters really drive the storylines. Trevor Eve and Susan Johnston play off each other very well. Claire Goose, Will Johnston and Holly Aird who make up the rest of the team are equally compelling. Looking forward to more of this series making it to DVD here in the states. A little disappointed that there were no commentaries or extras but I'm not going to complain because it seem to take forever for British shows to make it on to Region 1 DVDs. Hopefully BBC/BBCAmerica can make that happen a bit more quickly.

The premise was original when this show launched.....crime team reopen closed cases and solve old murder mysteries. Since which time there have been several American versions, none of which compare to the original. The show tends to be bleak and US viewers may find it a tad slow going, but the acting is first rate, especially from Sue Johnston from the 80's Channel 4 soap 'Brookside'. Trevor Eve does what he always does...ie. look very sombre, serious and worried all the time. Since his first series on British TV "Shoestring' over 20 years ago, he continues to act the only way he is able...very one dimensional ! But the show is brilliantly made, as only the BBC can.
I am so very grateful that finally these British shows are making it to Amazon.com as the exchange rate...Dollar to Sterling was killing me on Amazon.co.uk. !

This is a great series. Great characters and plots. The pilot was not shown on BBC America so I enjoyed seeing that. I look forward to release of the following seasons.

If you want a look at how Cold Case Files and CSI came to be,
then obtain the BBC-produced Waking the Dead (Seasons 1 and 2). Absolutely tremendous writing, superb casting and acting, and believable characters that you can relate to. Whereas the US-produced Cold Case, CSI, etc., present us with "cookie cutter" gender leads, the British-produced Waking the Dead is not concerned with the looks as much as the believability of the characters. We were so impressed with these stories and their presentation that we purchased Seasons 3, 4, 5 directly from Amazon.UK, because those seasons are not yet produced for our playback region. We even purchased an "all region" DVD player to watch these. If you want to experience made-for-tv drama the way it should be done, do not deny yourself this experience.

The pilot set the scene for a very good series.
The actors performances were excellent - story line kept you engrossed.

Waking the dead is one of my favourite series, along side Foyle's War, and Inspector's Lynley and Frost.

In my opinion Trevor Eve is first class in the role of Peter Boyd.

I watched this a few years ago and am now watching the series again. I have seen a great many more crime shows since this show from both the UK and USA. What sets this show apart is that a lot of it has been borrowed, especially by USA crime shows. What the USA shows do is increase the sentimentality and sappy elements while decreasing the gritty and real elements. UK crime shows don't do this and this one certainly didn't.

To compare this to CSI verges on the laughable. This show does not glamorize forensics or cold case work. It does not play loud rock music over good looking people doing forensics testing in futuristic labs. Instead, it is a very gritty depiction of the detectives and forensic specialists trying to solve grisly cases which have remained unsolved. So this was a genuinely ground breaking show.

The team also has a psychologist on board and she is probably the best character of all and the least glamorous. In fact, she is middle aged. Also, the overall boss can be a real egomaniac and over controlling, which is the unpleasant reality of many people in positions of power. His temper flares out at all of his employees and he wants everything done yesterday. He's very good at what he does though and keeps everyone on target. So, like in all jobs, that is why his employers keep him running this department.

If you are getting tired of crime shows or forensic shows which seem to only resemble the real world in passing, try this series out instead.

I've been watching Waking the Dead since it first came out on BBC America. It was the first of the cold case series, and I think the best one. It's been consistently good over the life of the series and the cast is very good. Trevor Eve is great as Peter Boyd, the head of the team, and the whole cast works well with him. The sometimes tense and antagonistic actions of the team seem very realistic to me. I only wish BBC would continue with the series. It has been over a year since there has been any new shows and I'm really sorry the series seems to have ended.

I fell in love with this show on BBCAmerica and waited not so patiently for it to come out on Region 1 DVD.
Well worth the price I paid, just wish it had some extras, cast interviews, behind the scenes look, etc.

Waking the Dead: Season 1, (2000). This is a British mystery/police procedural television series made by and for the BBC (British Broadcasting Company). To the best of my knowledge, it has only been seen here on BBCAmerica: at least that's where I saw it, some years ago. But it stuck in my memory, as it just might in yours. The series is set in contemporary times, and may be considered a British, slower-moving version of the American CSI. It follows the cold case unit, police investigators who use modern techniques to solve old murder cases, and has won international Emmys. The unit, led by DSI (Detective Supervising Inspector) Peter Boyd (Trevor Eve), includes cops, a scientist, and a psychologist/profiler, who do their best to combine forensics, psychology and old-fashioned police work. It was created by Barbara Machin, as, apparently, an original concept, and in fact, shows a strong female influence at the helm throughout. This set consists of three disks, running approximately 567 minutes, and has good subtitles.

Eve, a somber, gripping and intense presence, (Heat of the Sun Boxed Set (Private Lives / Hide in Plain Sight / The Sport of Kings),Masterpiece Contemporary: Framed ) is ably supported by Sue Johnston (The Royle Family - The Complete First Season) as Grace Foley, psychologist/profiler, and they play off each other well. In fact, they play off each other so well that Holly Aird, playing the unit's forensics expert Frankie Wharton, who was originally given second billing behind Eve on the pilot episode, is dropped to third billing when the series proper begins. (Boyd also is seen with a family in the pilot, which he loses by the first episode, apparently in accordance with the unwritten rule of British TV mystery series, that the detective may have no family.) The show, although slow-moving by American standards, is intense and suspenseful, with some onscreen violence, and probably not for shrinking violets. And it is refreshing to see investigations headed by middle-aged, no longer perfect-looking people, as they are in real life. Strong supporting players are many, including Annette Crosbie, equally skilled at comic and dramatic roles (One Foot in the Grave: The Complete Series,Edward the King), and Anthony Valentine (Raffles: Complete Collection). Also Amelia Warner, John Vine, Peter Gallagher, Clive Russell.

The episodes, built around four unsolved crimes that have lain dormant for years, are:
The Pilot. Concerns the abduction and murder of Alice Miller, a young girl who disappeared five years ago. The team inadvertently triggers the killer, who apparently holds a grudge against Boyd, to strike again in exactly the same manner as before: this time he kidnaps and holds the teenage Jodie Whitemore. Boyd fights to get the current, urgent case for the Cold Team, which then finds they are struggling to solve past and present crimes at the same time.
"Burnout." The suspicious death of a celebrated war photographer in a car accident haunts the photographer's daughter: in fact, she thinks she has recently actually been haunted by her father. Was the lensman's death suicide, an accident, or murder? In the meantime, her mother has moved on, and now lives with the photographer's brother.
"Blind Beggar." A body is found, buried for twenty years, under the concrete in St. Joseph's basement crypt: the local Catholic community is deeply shaken. Annette Crosbie, as Moira Bowen, wife of a local contractor, dominates the screen in this one.
"A Simple Sacrifice." Annie Keel is a beautiful woman who has already spent 25 years in jail for a double murder, that of her husband and a friend of her son's, to which she had confessed. But an anonymous source has recently come to light, who was apparently in the house that night, and has forensic proof of it. This tipster insists Annie is innocent of the crimes, and points the finger at her surviving, long-estranged son.
"Every Breath You Take." The body of Debbie Britten, celebrated as a police hero, is found in the Thames River. She is found to have been pregnant. Was her killer one of her several stalkers, her estranged husband, or the unknown father of the unborn daughter?

A minor caveat: the two parts of "A Simple Sacrifice" appear on two different disks. This was slightly annoying, but the series is of such high quality it kept me riveted on the sofa. When I was interrupted by a phone call from a friend, I hardly remembered my name, let alone hers; such is my capacity for losing myself in things I really like.

When I had started watching this series, I thought that I was going to end up comparing it to CSI. Wrong! This is so much better. The attention moves away from the laboratory to people and places. The team is made up of very individualistic people and this keeps a perpetual state of tension in the working. The stories and the actual plots are just incredible. Some of these episodes made my hair stand up. British mystery does not get better than this.