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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Foyle's War-The Complete Second Season (2002)

Foyle's War-The Complete Second Season (2002)

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Released 14-Mar-2007

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Drama None
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 2002
Running Time 396:09
RSDL / Flipper No/No
Multi Disc Set (4)
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Jeremy Silberston
Gavin Millar
Giles Foster
Studio
Distributor
Icon Entertainment Starring Michael Kitchen
Honeysuckle Weeks
Anthony Howell
Julian Overden
Geoffrey Freshwater
Case ?
RPI $69.95 Music Jim Parker


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.78:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits Yes

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    There have been many high-quality English mystery television series produced over the years including Poirot, Miss Marple, Midsomer Murders and many more. This series though,  which started in 2002, is a cut above those as it not only includes entertaining mysteries but is also a revealing drama about life on the home front during wartime and contains fully-rounded and interesting leading characters. Unlike many of the sleuths involved in other series, the crime fighting team here are revealed more fully which makes them easier for the audience to engage with and feel empathy for.

    This series is set during 1940 and follows the cases of Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen), an English coastal town's police chief and a frustrated man who would rather be more directly involved in the war effort. He is a veteran of the First World War and an honest, composed and dogged detective who investigates crimes such as sabotage, murder, racketeering and treason. His team consists of his driver, Samantha 'Sam' Stuart (Honeysuckle Weeks), a young woman who has been transferred from another women's unit to be his driver and Detective Sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell), a badly injured war hero who is slowly coming to terms with his missing leg. Sam starts out as being just his driver but soon gets involved in solving the crimes and sometimes working undercover. Another important recurring character is Foyle's son Andrew (Julian Ovenden), a fighter pilot.

    The stories are woven around real life events from history such as the Luftwaffe raids over England and the rescue from France of British soldiers by small boats.

    This second series of the show is made up of four movie-length episodes over four single layer discs. Currently, the last series of Foyle's War (the sixth) is being made in England. In total, 19 episodes will be made. The series is written by long-term English mystery television script writer Anthony Horowitz who has written episodes of Poirot and Midsomer Murders. In this series however, he created the stories and characters from scratch as well as writing the screenplays. The casting and acting are both fantastic especially Michael Kitchen in the lead role. This series is available either in standard edition four disc amaray case or a special edition fold-out digipak. Otherwise the editions are the same.

    This second series focuses a little more on the mysteries and a little less on the characters which makes sense as the main characters are now well established. This is neither good nor bad, just different. It does allow for the mysteries to become a little more complex.

    The four episodes are:

  1. Fifty Ships - Sam gets caught up personally in the bombings which leads to a mystery surrounding missing items from bombed houses and the role of the volunteer firemen. Also, a rich American trying to get to America to support England in the war is visiting and Foyle is invited to a dinner in his honour.
  2. Among The Few - Foyle is on his way back from London when a truck runs a checkpoint loaded with barrels. The truck crashes and explodes because it was full of stolen petrol. Sam goes undercover to solve the case. Andrew Foyle is flying for a local squadron.
  3. War Games - A large food company does a dodgy deal with Germany so they can still be a major company if England loses the war. A secretary who tries to blow the whistle gets thrown out a window while a barrister friend of Foyle knows more than he is letting on. Foyle is also refereeing a war game between the home guard and regular army.
  4. The Funk Hole - A young racketeer gets shot while attempting to steal food from a government warehouse. He was working at a country house which is being used as a 'funk hole', a place for rich people to rent rooms to escape from London. Andrew has a crash, while Foyle is accused of sedition.

    Another excellent season of this high-quality English mystery series.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    The video quality is good, a step up from the first season.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio (16x9 enhanced) which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture is reasonably sharp, a step up from series one. There is no evidence of low level noise. There is still some graininess to be seen due to MPEG compression and some occasional macro-blocking. Shadow detail is also improved over the first season.

    The colour is good but there is some colour bleeding, especially from light colours. The colour scheme is mostly khakis and brown evoking the feelings of the time.

    Artefacts include some minor aliasing, some edge enhancement plus some spots and splodges of white.

    There are no subtitles.

    These are single layer discs.

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

Audio

    The audio quality is good with no major issues.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue is mostly clear and easy to understand and there is no problem with audio sync. Some accents and a bit of mumbling make some lines of dialogue hard to decipher. Subtitles would have been a great help.

    The score of this series is by Jim Parker and includes a nicely done theme plus some other incidental music.

    The surround speakers are not used.

    The subwoofer adds some bass to the music, however this is a function of bass management rather than the soundtrack.

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

Extras

   None.

Menu

    The menu included an introduction and music. It is quite simple, only allowing for scene selection.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    This series is available in both Region 1 and 2. They are identical except for the NTSC/PAL differences. This Region 4 version of this series (when compared to the others) misses out on:

    The other versions of this series miss out on:

    Region 1 is the pick here.

Summary

    Another excellent season of this high-quality English mystery series.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is good.

    There are no extras.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Daniel Bruce (Do you need a bio break?)
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV667A DVD-V DVD-A SACD, using Component output
DisplaySony FD Trinitron Wega KV-AR34M36 80cm. Calibrated with Digital Video Essentials (PAL). This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL)/480i (NTSC).
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationPioneer VSX-511
SpeakersMonitor Audio Bronze 2 (Front), Bronze Centre & Bronze FX (Rears) + Yamaha YST SW90 subwoofer

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