McCallum

As with some of the best films and series, I stumbled across this quite by accident. It was late, a storm was in full force outside and I was sitting comfortably on the sofa when I flicked past a channel that was just about to show one of the episodes. I intended merely to watch a couple of minutes while waiting for the commercials to be finished on another channel before switching back to some or other sitcom. About an hour and a half later I remembered my resolve and was so happy that I hadn't done that. Needless to say I made sure I saw all the other episodes.

John Hannah has been brilliant in almost everything I have seen him in and he does not let down here either. All other cast members do a stellar job too. My personal favourite (aside from John Hannah, of course) is Gerard Murphy.

The only negative side to this series are the limited amount of episodes. Only 8 with JH himself and an additional 1 with someone else. I would love to see McCallum back on the screens, though it would have to be with JH!

I love this (all too short) series. I also enjoyed John Hannah in the few episodes he did of the 'Rebus' series. He was a probably a bit too young for that role ( I expected an older heavier kind of presence, one with more 'rough gravitas'). No matter, I really enjoy all his work, and that universally admired Scots accent is a big contributing factor. It's interesting that this is a role that has as the main characters a Scot(John Hannah) and and Irish lady (Zara Turner),with the whole show set in London! I suspect that the accents add a great of appeal to the show (and probably prompt a good deal of rewinding of some scenes to catch the meaning for many North Americans). This note is actually a query,because the opening theme music is a lovely guitar sequence, but I can't find out any more than that except that the music appears to be written by 'Daemion Barry'. Yes, but who played the theme tune? It's very evocative of an Eric Clapton style, but I'd love to find the actual recording of this tune. Any info welcome.

Thanks to the Shazam app, I was finally able to identify the gorgeous intro & closing music to McCallum. It's a song called Country Memories by Guy Fletcher & Rod Williams. I've spent hours trying to ID this instrumental & finally I found it.

I started watching McCallum via streaming so - many years after its original broadcast. These medical mysteries made in the early days of DNA analysis kept me engaged but I had problems with the show. (My husband refused to watch after one episode but I kept going.) In the first episode, the boy-coroner behaves like a teen while everyone else acts grown up but in the next, McCallum takes command of these same adults who behave like kids. Also (1) the pleasant theme song leads me to think the show is about a happy-go-lucky country veterinarian rather than a serious, touchy, horny medical examiner who vies with everyone in The Big City (2) McCallum zooms around the mean night streets on a motorcycle that doesn't seem suited to his demanding, high stakes, gloom-and-doom medical job (3) McCallum imagery is relentlessly dark and dingy - the graveyard shift explores unexplained deaths in dreary settings: dirty alleyways, shadowy exam rooms, cramped walk-ups, filthy windows, greasy drizzle falling on inky alleyways - then, after work, it's off to dark, noisy pubs to get falling-down drunk - yuk (4) the character Joanna spends too much time curled up on a sofa pouting, more like a plot device than a flesh-and-blood woman - so helpless she waits for the hard-driving McCallum to arrive on his motorcycle laden with groceries to feed her, as if she were his pet cat (5) I actually cringe to see the ill-tempered detective who, rather than speaking in normal tones must always snarl, bark and scowl, demanding impossibly fast results from everyone amid gruesome crime scenes, tenement hallways, morgues and police HQs. I can see why the show had so few episodes. A shame, really, because it does have its strong points: intricate plots, Fuzzy the scientist, the beautiful doctor Angela, McCallum's flashes of brilliance, exciting conclusions (though they do seem rushed with breathless explanations and sudden closing credits). I came to like John Hannah very much - a good actor - and plan to see his other appearances.

The first couple of episodes were pretty good, but things went down hill from there. McCallum's personal life became the focus rather than being a background element. I wonder if they didn't change writers: the plots became implausible. The pacing was slow. They appear to have tried to stretch material that suited a one hr. show into 1.5 hrs. Midway through the second season we abandoned the show. My wife and I wouldn't recommend it. There is no way that this show deserves the high rating that it has on IMDB.