Colin_Sibthorpe_II

Fast-moving, intelligent plots; excellent scripts and acting; credible and interesting characters; and good detail on the law, the show's legal adviser being a prominent solicitor in real life.

I remember Episode 1 of Season 4 very well but apart from that I didn't see it at the time, so the Talking Pictures rerun was new to me. I was riveted, and indeed, now they are showing it again, I am watching once more.

As for Main not being very nice, he throws away his career to stand by a friend who made a bad misjudgment, and he regularly prioritizes cases to help the poor over much more lucrative work. He ain't all bad!

I'd have bought this like a shot on DVD - if it had ever been made available. But tonight, even better, I found it on All 4 and watched it streaming. Characters, script, plot, acting, all marvellous. Episode one is a little slow and that probably hurt the ratings; otherwise it's hard to account for the lack of repeats or a DVD.

I believe the Michael Gambon Maigret was shot in Budapest because Paris didn't look like Paris any more! There are no such problems here. This is the Paris of the books, and Rupert Davies is Maigret exactly as Simenon conceived him. It was this authenticity that made me buy it as soon as it came out.

Thus the scenery and atmosphere are perfect. The stories, inevitably, are variable, but I'd call them good to excellent. The acting is solid rather than anything better - clearly there were no funds for retakes and there is usually a fluffed line or two in every episode.

The weak spot is the technical quality. Episode One is an outlier, in that it is so poor it is difficult to watch. From Episode Two it is very much better, but still not great. But then, would it have been any better for the TV viewer of the time, watching a 405 line transmission on an 18 inch set?

Anyway I'm delighted to have bought this wonderful time capsule.