Customer Reviews

Wycliffe - Series 1

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

 

 

We thoroughly enjoyed this series and are looking forward to more of them. That being said, it should be noted that they done in an hour long format, and therefore move along much more quickly than many of the British mysteries like Morse, Midsomer Murders, Touch of Frost, and the like. Nevertheless, the stories are good, the police team is fun to watch in action, especially as you get to know the characters better, and Cornwall itself makes a stunning location for the series, which is based on the books by W. J. Burley. I thought about marking this down a notch when compared to the quality of Inspector Morse, but we enjoyed it so much that I decided it was worth top marks considered as a different category. Sometimes an hour just hits the spot, and these are well done.

Series one of Wycliffe does not compel me to purchase series two. The scenery is gorgeous and well photographed, the acting is fine, and the music is beautiful. But the writing is often awkward and the characters in the series are never well defined. Three people, really, are solving murders: Wycliffe, who is a senior policeman, a bearded assistant, and an attractive young policewoman. All we learn about the star of the series is that he is rather pleasant, calm, and intensely irreligious. The entire film "Last Rites" is a particularly shrill attack upon Christianity. The bearded cop is always eating and smoking (Why do we need closeups of his chewing, slurping and lighting up?). The young woman is wooden enough to be featured on a daytime soap opera.

Moreover, there is a total lack of humanity or humor in these films. A coroner seems to enjoy the mutilated and frozen corpses he faces. Wycliffe shouts at a few suspects and grimaces at corpses. There are a few car chases to enliven the programs. Otherwise, all is grim and nasty. Not recommended.

Really quite a well done show, but images dated and not as clear as would expect today. PLEASE remaster this series--it has a lot of potential.

As fans of British mysteries we had high hopes for Wycliffe and were somewhat disappointed with this series. They're not really bad just not as good as we had hoped they would be. We'll continue to watch them and see if anything changes but as for right now the jury is out.

I've watched this type of series mature over a season or two and hope this one might improve also; I have "New Tricks" in mind particularly which improved after the first season in my opinion.

You may like it more than I do and it's worth checking out.

This Brit cop procedural has so much going for it -- great locale (the rocky English coast), intriguing plot lines and, most of all, compelling characters. Plus, that haunting theme song! I highly recommend it.

Immensely enjoyable series about a homicide investigation team in Cornwall with a clever Chief Inspector who is very reticent about his private life, although there are enough allusions to permit viewers to make accurate guesses about his upbringing. The intense focus is on the murder itself and solving it. The sound quality is much better than some British murder mystery series which makes investigations easy to understand.

This is an excellent series with good British character actors working in visually stunning locations. There's not a lot of humor in it, but it's believable and well worked out. It doesn't adhere very closely to the books by W.J. Burley, but anyone who has read the books will understand that they needed to be changed to introduce regular characters to support the introspective Wycliffe.

Well worth purchasing for anyone who enjoys low-key British dectective dramas.

I'm keeping an open mind and will see more Wycliffes, but the length of the stories (45-50 minutes) is inadequate for the form. There is not enough time and space in which to develop characters, not enough time and space in which to develop subplots and, hence, mysteries and not enough time to linger over the lush Cornwall settings. I'm not arguing that it's all about the time. Frost is wonderful and only a little bit longer; Midsomer Murders are wonderful but sometimes a bit too long, but the time constraints contribute to the problem that the investigative triumvirs in Wycliffe are not particularly interesting people, the stories are not well-developed and the perps fairly obvious. The guest actors, however, are often excellent, so that there is material on which to build. I'm keeping an open mind, but so far I've found the series a bit dull.

We were very disappointed in the Wycliffe Series One because the main actor who played Wycliffe was too unresponsive to the actions in the story. Compared to other British mystery series, it was dull and not worth the time spent watching it.

This is the first series of a great show in which a real to like style detective solves crimes. He is a ultra laid back detective here and most homicide detectives are like this guy laid back and calm. Ready to talk to people to find out what's going on. And this series tried to take books and make them into one hour episodes. This show does improve alot as time goes on, during this series it's decent to very good!, but I think jack shephards low key performance is underrated by some people. The show was a hit though and worldwide did quite well so unlike some other brit shows we did get all five series on dvd! And yes you must be patient with this show. IT goes at a slow pace and the writing isn't as great at all to what this show put out in series 3-5. Those series are just GREAT! Those are just excellent series. Two is filled with more excellent shows but this one you have to be more patient with as they cram big stories into a hour. Still the acting brings it up a notch and this is a countryside detective show! NOt a large city where more radical approaches may be needed often. Anyways the picture like many 1993- 1994 tv shows has film grain but that's ok because there are no defects. The dvd set has all the eps of the first series and no extras really. this does not have the pilot episode sadly.