Kavanagh

Awesome series - one of a select few awarded 10/10. Big fan of John Thaw and he does not disappoint in this. Watched it first time around, just rewatched and still superb. Thaw had a contract to do more before his untimely demise and truly sad that he could not continue with this and potential new ventures.

Kavanagh Q C gives us a glimpse of Inspector Morse, if he had become a barrister rather than a Chief Inspector,found love rather than solitude,and had hailed from Sargent Lewis's neck of the woods rather than Cambridge. This sort of television should be the norm, not a rare exception.

Kavanagh Q.C. is a British Series about a barrister with the designation of Queen's Counsel (hence the title) which stars John Thaw, Thaw is likely best known to most for the "Inspector Morse" series or "The Sweeney". In both of these other two series Thaw played police officers although decidedly different ones. With Kavanagh we again have another character very different than either Morse or Jack Regan.

I found it somewhat refreshing to see a series both for Thaw and of this type where the lead character has a home life and a family. I find it unfortunate that later in the series they decided to curtail this approach which I thought brought a nice balance to the series.

Overall the series has a few flaws including some supporting characters that are thinly developed or caricatured (although the performances are by and large good) and the writing fails to give us many memorable courtroom moments. But I found that it was counterbalanced by a well developed lead character (with a strong performance from Thaw) as well as some interesting subject manner and social commentary. Another reason I found this intriguing is because the courtroom drama on TV still hasn't as overdone as other genres, and this was the only example I have seen from Britain.

This is also another British series with some very good guest stars including a young Ewan McGregor in the first episode.

Unfortunately not all the episodes of the series have been released on DVD for Region 1. Hopefully this will be rectified at some point in the future.

The writing and the acting are sublime. We must also credit the editing, which keeps things moving smartly along.

The courtroom scenes are meticulously wrought. As a longtime trial lawyer I can say they are not only realistic, but made riveting by their very realism, rather than by contrived histrionics. There is often a surprising twist.

Each episode has multiple subplots surrounding the central courtroom drama, involving Kavanagh's once-unfaithful but now apparently loving wife, his naive and often disrespectful children, and his flavorful rivals and chamber colleagues.

High literature, this is. Just excellent.

This series is adult British drama at its best. Kavanagh is a lawyer magnificently portrayed by John Thaw and surrounded by a multitude of interesting characters. It never ceases to amaze me that this type of program is able to attract perfect believable actors for even the smallest roles. Many of the cases are thought provoking and the only one I didn't like was the American set "In God We Trust" which came across as well as US programs do when they portray UK situations! The only negative is that some of the video work when light is poor looks rather grainy. This might look good in some situations, but not in the court-rooms. This is a minor criticism. I thoroughly commend the series.