Cadfael-Series 1 (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	302:20 (Case: 312)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Ken Grieve Richard Stroud Herbert Wise Sebastian Graham Jones
Studio Distributor	Time Life	Starring	None Given
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Colin Towns

    Cadfael earns its name from Brother Cadfael (Derek Jacobi) – a former crusader turned monk and erstwhile police investigator in medieval England. Through his position in the church, a central tenet of medieval life, Cadfael finds himself, more often than not, in the centre of intrigues – generally murder – and assisting Sheriff Hugh Beringar (Eoin McCarthy) in keeping the peace.

    Based on the novels by Edith Pargeter, writing under the pseudonym Ellis Peters, and shot on location in Hungary (because there’s nothing left of the English countryside), Cadfael is a surprisingly engaging series for one now thirteen years old. In certain respects this is because of its location, more in terms of temporality than physical location, which adds an air of timelessness to the show and therefore causes it to date less than other shows set in the contemporary era, yet to acquire the nostalgia that is now so common with series from the 1980s.

    This series contains all four episodes of the first season across two discs.

Disc 1

• Episode One: One Corpse Too Many (75:40) – when King Stephen orders 94 townsmen to be put to death at a nearby castle, Cadfael discovers a total of 95 bodies when helping prepare the dead for burial, and suspects foul play.
• Episode Two: The Sanctuary Sparrow (75:37) – when a bard is accused of murder and seeks sanctuary in the monastery, Cadfael seeks to help him clear his name.

Disc 2

• Episode Three: The Leper of St Giles (75:21) – when Baron Huon de Domville disappears before his wedding, Cadfael must track down the Baron to discover if he has been murdered.
• Episode Four: Monk’s Hood (75:42) – the death of a wealthy landowner who has willed everything to Shrewsbury Abbey puts Cadfael in touch with his former love.

    As a whole, this series is intriguing, and highly recommended for those of you who enjoy movies like In The Name Of The Rose. As a sequence of what are essentially telemovies, they do not precisely follow the sequence of the novels upon which they are based, but they do a good job of recreating the medieval era. And Jacobi definitely makes the most of his role, even if some of the extras can be a little ham-fisted. Don’t let that put you off, though – this is one of those rare high quality BBC dramas that is worth a look for the curious.

Video

    This transfer is in the original aspect ratio of 1.33:1, Full Frame, non-16x9 enhanced.

    Colour is well-saturated, well-balanced and generally lifelike. The picture is sharper than I was expecting it to be.

    The picture is slightly grainy, but not ugly, and better than a lot of things I’ve seen lately.

    There are no MPEG artefacts and only some very minor aliasing in the way of film-to-video transfer artefacts.

    There is some minor dirt on the print.

    Unfortunately, there are no subtitles.

    These are dual layer discs. The dual layer pauses fall between the episodes on each disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Audio is available in the original English mixed in 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo encoded at 192kb/s.

    This is an a largely dialogue driven show, and dialogue has been well mastered – clear, crisp and without any sync faults that weren’t clearly source faults.

    Surround use is minimal, but there is not a lot of call for it.

    There is no subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. The main menu has the theme in 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo.

    Content wise, the R1 and R2 releases are identical, and both have English subtitles, where the R4 release does not. The R1 release has NTSC video format image and region coding. The picture for R4 is just a touch better than that for R2, with slightly better colour, perhaps because the transfer was done more recently with better authoring technology.

    Cadfael is a highly entertaining medieval mystery series. While it has its moments of slight over-dramatisation, it is on the whole worth the time. And this is a good value DVD pack.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall