Monarch of the Glen-The Complete Series 1 (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Animation Interviews-Cast-A Conversation With Susan Hampshire (9:04) Production Notes Filmographies-Cast
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	392:07 (Case: 400)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Edward Bennett A.J. Quinn
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Richard Briers Susan Hampshire Alastair MacKenzie Lorraine Pilkington
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$49.95	Music	Simon Brint

    For all the jokes made about the British Broadcasting Commission, the fact is that they produce some of the finest free-to-air television in the world. At the forefront of their pre-eminence is their superb Natural History Unit, which has ultimately been responsible for some of the finest natural history programming the world has ever seen. However, there has been a more important market that they have served with quality programming over the years and that is their episodic drama series. When that drama also takes little deviations into the comedic realm, the results have been often spectacularly successful. In recent times there has probably been no more successful such series as Monarch Of The Glen.

    It is well understandable that we DVD reviewers don't get too much time to sit back and watch too much television or film just for the sheer pleasure of it. Too many review discs to do, too many rubbish extras to watch and too many long hours spent pondering how to say quite politely that the latest release is a load of fetid dingoes kidneys. Whilst I cannot vouch for all reviewers of course, in general the lack of time to watch television is no serious problem as most of what is on is just about that load of fetid dingoes kidneys. However, there are those programmes that I do make time for. The English Premier League highlights show on Monday nights. That's it, well at least apart from when Monarch Of The Glen is on, repeat or otherwise. I give you the tip too: when my beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers no longer grace the premiership, the television viewing will go back to just Monarch Of The Glen, at least as long as the ABC or someone else have the good sense to show it. Further, Monarch Of The Glen is the only programme that I have voluntarily watched on VHS since I switched to DVD in 1999 - and not just once either.

    Now, are you getting a rough idea of how much I enjoy the series? What makes this series so special? Well, if I had the definitive answer to that, I safely suggest I would not be writing DVD reviews for this esteemed web site but rather would be working for a major broadcast network. However, to my mind a lot of the reason why so many find this series such a delight gets back to the core basics of many fine television series: great characters brought to life by great actors. And Monarch Of The Glen is blessed with some really great characters indeed. But the characters start the series: where it finishes is some genuinely gentle humour and some superb scenery.

    There are eight episodes making up the first series of the programme:

• Episode 1 (48:50) - The usual character-introducing effort, so not exactly the most flowing of episodes, although one that sets up the rest of the first series well enough. Archie MacDonald (Alastair Mackenzie) has been away from his ancestral home for ten years, suitably ensconced in London with his girlfriend and business partner Justine (Anna Wilson-Jones). Unfortunately, whilst his parents Hector (Richard Briers) and Molly (Susan Hampshire) still maintain the lifestyle of the landed gentry, their financial situation is diabolical. When his father manages to end up in the loch, mother sees it as an ideal opportunity to get Archie back home. So Archie rushes back home to find the truth - father is okay, financial situation is not and he is the Laird (head honcho of the 40,000 acre Glenbogle Estate, and ancestral home of the MacDonald clan). Knowing the truth, Archie wants back to London but Molly with the aid of housekeeper Lexie (Dawn Steele), ghillie Golly (Alexander Morton) and general hand Duncan (Hamish Clark) manages to forestall his efforts. Local school teacher Katrina Finlay (Lorraine Pilkington) meantime is not entirely averse to the idea of the Laird hanging around for a while.
• Episode 2 (49:18) - Despite his best efforts to get back to London and sanity, Archie is still stuck at Glenbogle. Life is not guaranteed to get any easier when the Estate's bankers, taking a dim exception to Hector's responses to their letters of demand, despatches to Glenbogle account executive Lancelot Fleming (Simon Slater) to foreclose on the MacDonald clan. Things get worse when Hector manages to annoy Fleming no end, so despite the best endeavours of everyone else, things are not going to plan. Archie enlists the aid of Katrina to help sort out the books, whilst Lexie takes a shine to the visitor and does her best to make him happy - which rather enrages the jealous Duncan. Meantime, the annual Glenbogle Hill Run is run wherein the honour of the MacDonald clan must be upheld (or at least be seen to be upheld).
• Episode 3 (49:24) - Wondering why her man has not returned to London, Justine suddenly arrives at the door of Glenbogle House to find out what holds more attraction than her and their restaurant. One look at Katrina and Justine and she has a pretty good idea. Meantime, neighbour and fellow member of the landed gentry Lord Angus Kilwillie (Julian Fellowes), albeit a lot more wealthy and successful member, has a problem. He has agreed to allow a Japanese motor manufacturer to use Kilwillie Castle for the launch of a new car in exchange for a rather large sum of money. The date has been brought forward by the Japanese and is now to conflict with the Glenbogle Ball. He needs a new venue and begs for aid from Hector. The family is loathe to oblige, owing to events that soured the last time the ball was held at Glenbogle House, but Justine jumps at the chance. Twenty four hours to go and much preparation is necessary - whilst jealousies abound - with renovations to the house as a backdrop.
• Episode 4 (49:11) - Glenbogle House is visited by a genealogist in search of the rightful owner of the Ballintyne Bequest. Duncan's grandmother was a Ballintyne, so naturally he has high presumptions about his future. Whilst scouring the attic for paperwork for the visitor, a suitcase owned by Katrina's mother is found. Archie returns the suitcase to Katrina, wherein is discovered a diary that reveals that Katrina was the result of an affair between her mother, a servant at Glenbogle House, and someone known simply as H. When confronted with the revelation, Hector refuses to comment and Molly is affronted enough to walk out. As Archie and Katrina go forth to solve the mystery of H, all roads seem to have become dead ends until they find the genealogist doing some private research near the very spot where a photograph was taken of Katrina's mother.
• Episode 5 (49:11) - Things are not going to get any easier for Archie despite the bright idea to bottle the spring water to be found on the Estate, as his sister Lizzie (Abigail Cruttenden) arrives home with an entourage of alternative lifestyle gurus in tow. She of course has an idea for the salvation of the Estate, although Archie is not so convinced. He is even less convinced when his checks of Lizzie's friend Gerald (Johnny Phillips) reveal his true background, despite Gerald locating a mountain spring. When Lizzie also makes an unexpected announcement, more problems follow, although Lizzie does make Katrina take a look at how she feels about Archie. The gullible Hector listens to some advice offered by Gerald and lands himself in cold water.
• Episode 6 (48:36) - An annual ancient ritual involving the MacDonalds and the Kilwillies is about to be run yet again, with Lord Kilwillie issuing the challenge to the new Laird of Glenbogle. It's a simple row across the loch to rescue a fair maiden and return her to safety. The MacDonalds have not won for years. As the backdrop to the challenge, Kilwillie's man has found a long lost MacDonald heirloom that is his by the simple rule of finders keepers. Hector is appalled by the events as he lost the ring in the first place. At the same time, marketing type Fiona (Hilary Lyon) is at the Estate to help formulate plans for the marketing of the spring water, with gay photographer Gavin (Tom Smith) in tow to capture the spirit of the Estate. Gavin and Duncan seem to hit it off with Lexie having done no small amount of playing around in the matter - but she may well get her comeuppance.
• Episode 7 (48:24) - It is the Glorious Twelfth and the gentry are about to indulge in the first day of the grouse shooting season. In London a prize is offered for the first restaurant to serve grouse in the city, so Archie and Lexie are on the trail of grouse and salmon for a very rapid trip to London and the restaurant. Of course, nothing really goes to plan and when the helicopter they chartered develops engine problems, the likelihood of winning the prize is remote. The battle is on but they arrive in London only to face more battles. After a hellish day at the capital, Archie and Lexie return on the evening sleeper upon which events take a sudden turn. Meantime back in the Highlands it is election day and Katrina is determined to oust Lord Kilwillie as the elected representative on the Highland Council.
• Episode 8 (49:13) - It looks like things are finally severed between Justine and Archie after the events in London, but Archie has more pressing problems in Glenbogle, where Hector has reported a modest rising damp problem in the cellar. Since nothing ever happens by half at Glenbogle, the financial situation of the Estate is plunged into further disarray when Fleming returns to announce that the bank is baying for blood - and only a large quantity of money will suffice to get the baying hounds off the Estate's back. With the house literally falling down around his ears, Archie has to decide whether to run back to London and Justine or to accept her offer to buy out his half of the restaurant. Whilst making his mind up, Archie manages to alienate just about every member of the household - although they manage to come up with a way to raise the money necessary to satisfy the immediate financial problem. At celebrations for the fortieth anniversary of Hector and Molly, Justine makes an unexpected guest - just as Katrina and Archie might have been progressing their situation.

    The general quality of the acting is undisputed and the stories are quite gently humorous, with the whole thing being a very natural effort. This truly is one of the better series to grace television in the past decade. Wonderful stuff in every respect and well worth investigating if you have never indulged the incarnations on television.

Video

    The disappointment upon pushing the play button is hard to describe. The packaging clearly shows the aspect as being 16:9. Now that means to me a widescreen presentation, but obviously not to the people at Roadshow Home Entertainment. No, despite the series being shot in widescreen and despite the imagery being clearly framed for widescreen presentation, what we have is a Pan and Scan abomination of a transfer. You only have to look at the first few minutes of the first episode to notice how constrained some of the shots are in this format. This is one of those rare instances where even Blind Freddy can see that the series was shot in such a way as to take advantage of the widescreen format. I appreciate that we saw the series on free-to-air television in Australia in the increasingly-less-standard 1.33:1 aspect ratio, but when a series is so obviously shot to take advantage of a widescreen presentation...

    The transfer is of course not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is highlighted by some very good definition, nice and sharp most of the time with so much detail that it is hard to envisage how it could have been any better. Sure there are a few lapses here and there, notably during low light conditions when grain becomes a bit of an issue, but overall the consistency of the presentation is very high. Shadow detail could perhaps have been a little better at times, but in most instances is also nothing much to complain about. Low level noise was not an issue in the transfer, so the overall clarity level was very good. I have rarely seen material intended for television of this quality - it certainly rivals film standards.

    The transfer is really a nicely vibrant effort, with a superbly rich tone and saturation most of the time. Given that much of the interior of Glenbogle House features gorgeous woodwork, this was incredibly important to the overall presentation. The only time that there is a drop off in tones and quality is perhaps during the fourth episode, which has a slightly unnatural look to it, with slightly underdone tones in comparison to the rest of the series. Oversaturation is nothing to be concerned about, nor is colour bleed.

    There did not appear to be any MPEG artefacts in the transfer. However, the transfer is unfortunately plagued with a degree of aliasing that, whilst nothing really gross, is certainly so consistent that it is difficult to ignore. I found it quite annoying by the end of the eighth episode, and unfortunately it seems that the problem got progressively worse the further through the episodes we get (or is that just an impression caused by the sheer consistency of the problem?). This was the second biggest disappointment with the transfer, as in all other respects there is little at all to complain about. I could give you several dozen examples of the problem, but will stick to just a few from the first episode: 0:20 on the bed head, 0:36 on the balustrade and 3:40 on the cupboard. The only other issue with film-to-video artefacting is a very minor instance of moiré artefacting at 3:48 on the shirt in Episode 5. There did not appear to be any film artefacts in the transfer.

    Both the DVDs in the package are Dual Layer formatted. As there is no obvious layer change on either disc, it would seem logical that the discs are mastered with two episodes on each layer.

    Rather regrettably there are no subtitles on the DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is just the single soundtrack on the DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Given the amount of bass in the soundtrack, I am presuming that it is a surround-encoded soundtrack.

    Everything in the way of dialogue comes up well in the soundtrack and there is no problem understanding anything. There are no audio sync issues with the transfer.

    Simon Brint is credited with being the composer of the original music for the series, and it has to be said that the theme for the series is rather engaging and quite instantly recognisable, and a d*** good effort it is too. Overall, the music is a little bit more than the average television series usually offers, although perhaps the theme does get a little too used at times.

    I was actually quite surprised by the extent of the bass information in the overall soundtrack, both pleasantly and not-so-pleasantly. The not-so-pleasant aspect was that the bass has been a tad over-mixed into the sound at times, with far more reverb than it really needs. This problem affects just about every episode in some way, but Episode 1 is perhaps the most afflicted. Otherwise, the bass information gives the sound a lot more presence and body than I was expecting and this adds immeasurably to the enjoyment of the presentation. The only other issue was some whistling in the soundtrack in a couple of episodes - most notably at 19:40 in Episode 6. Otherwise the sound is clean, clear and quite open.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There is not a whole lot on offer in the package, but given the extent of the episodes themselves, perhaps there was little space left over? Well, possibly, although there is certainly space available on disc two.

Menu

   Nothing terribly great and with just some minor animation enhancement, although they are in keeping with the opening credits of the series itself (even if the cover is not).

Interview - A Conversation With Susan Hampshire (9:04)

    Perversely presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, this is 16x9 enhanced and comes with decent Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Whilst not of sufficient length, this is a reasonably interesting look into the series from the eyes of one of the leading players.

Production Notes

   Blimey, when was the last time I saw these on a new release DVD for review? Whilst being only five pages in total, which instantly means a glossing over of the situation, they are interesting enough. Surely more could have been provided?

Filmographies

   For each of the main cast, a single page detailing some of their work. Something but not really enough.

    The first series of Monarch Of The Glen has been released in both Region 1 and Region 2. I have not managed to locate a review of the Region 2 release. From the DVD specifications found on a couple of sites, it would seem that the Region 4 release is fairly similar in content to the Region 2. With respect of the Region 1 release, a single review has been found. Based upon what it says, the Region 1 release features a 16x9 enhanced widescreen presentation, a short featurette from the BBC show Holiday from a visit to the shooting location, full biographies for the main cast and a couple of trailers for other shows. You might note that most online retailers indicate a Pan and Scan presentation, but the review clearly indicates a widescreen presentation. The BBC America web site also advises a widescreen presentation. The review would indicate a similar transfer quality overall, but that widescreen presentation certainly makes the decision very much in favour of the Region 1 release despite the variances in the extras package.

    Monarch Of The Glen is one of the very best television series of the past decade and a delightful piece of entertainment that I do not weary off - despite the number of times I have watched it (mainly in marathons watching the entire first three series). Aside from the problem with aliasing in the transfers, this would have ranked amongst the very best I have seen for a television series. As it is, it is still better than most and the quality of the show overrides the problems with the transfer. But at the end of the day, I cannot ignore the lack of a widescreen presentation...

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall