George Gently - BBC Series [DVD] [2007]

The BBC is great at producing thoughtful costume dramas and in many ways George Gently is as much an historical period piece as it is a carefully crafted detective series.
The action is set in 1964 in Northumberland, where a top-shot London detective, George Gently, has relocated to head up the CID for the whole area. If you imagine Inspector Morse or Barnaby of Midsummer but set back in the mid-1960s then you'll get the flavour of the series.

It's an interesting time to place a police procedural drama: the permissive society was kicking off in London and Liverpool but the rural north-east was only just feeling the ripples of the permissive society. George Gently's world represents the cross-over between the generation who fought in WW2, and the young lads who would create a social revolution. His sergeant is a youngblood; keen, a bit over impressed with his own importance; in need to reminding that his warrant card does not 'entitle you to be rude'.
Gently represents the last of the Dixon of Dock Green generation and he fights a low-key battle against the brutality of the sweeney-style policing which would dominate the 1970s and 80s. Many of the themes which were laid on with a trowel in Life on Mars are re-visited here, but they are done with subtlety and a hint of nostalgic affection. Gently is also an interesting character in his own right, and there is a fascination in watching his personal history be revealed.

None of this would be any cop at all if the plots were rubbish, but happily the puzzles unfold in an almost-believable manner. Many TV mystery series tend to pile on the incredible coincidences until the viewers' sense of disbelief comes crashing back to earth, but Gently seems to be more grounded in the actual nuts and bolts of criminal investigation.
The series also benefits from sharp scripting and some excellent acting from Martin Shaw -- now playing exactly the opposite character to youthful Doyle from his day in CI5!
There are some hiccups and mis-steps (some of swearing is modern-American, not 1960s Northumberland), and while the streets are populated with the right kind of cars and well-disguised sets (even down to old style road signs), they are also ridiculously clean and well kept. Sometimes it's a bit like watching All Creatures Great and Small...

But overall, George Gently adds up to thoughtful, mature entertainment. It's not particularly pulse-raising but it the mysteries kept us guessing (wrongly...) for most of the show. Definitely worth catching a couple of epiosdes to see if you like the style: we'd buy the series to watch again at our leisure.

"George Gently: Series 2," a first-rate television series of British mysteries/police procedurals debuted in the United Kingdom on BBC1 in May 2009. It has never been broadcast in the United States. The series is set in Northeast Britain, Geordie country, amid the upheavals and excesses of 1960's Britain. It stars respected, award-winning actor Martin Shaw (Judge John Deed : Pilot & Complete BBC Series 1 [2001] [DVD]), as Commander George Gently, and is based on the popular long-running series of detective novels by Alan Hunter. The entertainment comes in a boxed four DVD set that includes four feature-length episodes, running approximately 88 minutes each, for a total of 356 min.; a text interview with, and biography of its star, Martin Shaw; and, thank goodness, subtitles, as Geordie-speak falls hard upon American ears, and perhaps presents some British ears with difficulty. The episodes can stand alone, but you are missing some of the flavor if you haven't seen the first series.

Gently is an inconveniently incorruptible top cop, disliked almost as much by his colleagues as by criminal elements, and, therefore, bounced from Scotland Yard to Northumbria. There he finds an unexpected ally in ambitious young Sergeant John Bacchus, an overeager, opinionated young man who tends to play fast and loose with police procedures, a part played by Lee Ingleby (Nicholas Nickleby [DVD] [2003]). Guest stars include Tim McInnerney (Blackadder - The Complete Collection [DVD]); Nicholas Jones (Kavanagh Q.C. - The Complete Collection - Series 1 To 5 [DVD] [1995]); Mark Williams (the Harry Potter series), and Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval : Series 1 [DVD] [2007]).

The well-written, stylishly directed, absorbing mysteries unfold against a beautiful backdrop we're meant to think is rural Britain, though as the series was partly financed by the Irish Film Board, I wonder if we aren't looking at beautiful rural Ireland. No matter, the entertainment does have lovely backdrops, and is nicely filmed. The BBC has clearly thrown money at the screen - there are excellent supporting casts, extras aplenty, and the characters' clothing and cars are appropriate to the era, when Britain was beginning shake off its post-war deprivation and depression, and London was beginning to swing a bit.

The mysteries are:
"Gently with the Innocents." When local real estate developer Cora Davidson shows up at a newly-purchased property slated for demolition, she finds the unhappy seller butchered in his backyard. Suspicion falls on a mute gardener. A strong, and emotionally involving production.

"Gently in the Night." A pretty young woman clothed and shod a la mod, in go-go boots, turns up murdered, laid out on the altar of a Newcastle church. Investigation reveals she worked at Rake's, a Playboy Club clone that is drawing unwanted attention from religious protesters. Another strong, emotionally involving production.

"Gently in the Blood." Another lovely young woman found murdered, shortly after giving birth to a child that starts questions; the theft of expired U.K. passports; potentially violent ethnic hatreds in a seaside town; the victim's boyfriend involved with a gang of Arab toughs. This powerful episode actually reduced me to tears, a rare happening for a mystery series.

"Gently Through the Mill." Patrick Fuller, mill manager, found hanged from the rafters of his workplace. Suicide or murder? Investigation uncovers adultery, embezzlement, corruption, further deaths.

These are substantial, complex plots, driven by vivid characters, and strong women, and I found them quite gripping. Shaw plays the title character as a man of gravitas, and an insightful detective. I found the 60's setting more recognizable in this second series than the first: Bacchus has a Beatles haircut, and the girls wear white go-go boots; I suppose what we think of as the 60's didn't really get smoking until 1964. Of course, the quality of the film still makes obvious that this is a contemporary work: we need to see brief scenes of people smoking where they ought not to today, or of capital punishment (several of those) or hear prices quoted in the old money, pounds, shillings and pence to be occasionally reminded of the historic setting.

Initially, I'd wondered how much of the Swinging Sixties actually went north, until the setting of the second episode, in a Playboy-club like venue in Newcastle, reminded me that two of the greatest British films noir of the twentieth century were set in contemporaneous Newcastle, and they sure serve to illuminate the contemporary vices. You've got Get Carter [1971] [DVD], apparently based on a true life case, starring Michael Caine, who's always played a great gangster, with a stellar supporting cast behind him. And then there's Stormy Monday [DVD], that was apparently filmed in Newcastle as an homage to "Get Carter;" it starred Sean Bean, Tommy Lee Jones, and Melanie Griffith. So we can rest assured; the once-quiet northeast corner of England, far from London, got to experience the social, sexual, and political changes that characterized the 1960s as we knew them.

By far the best new detective series that has been on BBC for a very long time. Martin Shaw plays George Gently with perfect understatement. Great storylines, wonderful acting, a real sense of nostalgia. Can't wait for the DVD.