Brookside: Unfinished Business

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Dom Robinson reviews

Brookside: Unfinished BusinessJustice Vengeance. Retribution.Distributed by
Fremantle Home Entertainment

Cert:
Cat.no: FHED 1759
Running time: 85 minutes
Year: 2003
Pressing: 2003
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 8 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
Languages: English
Subtitles: none
Widescreen: 1.78:1 (16:9)
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras : Behind the scenes documentary, Interviews, Featurettes: “The Story So Far”,”Ten of the Best”, Photo Gallery, Audio commentary

Director:

Adrian Vitoria

(Capital Punishment, TV: “Brookside: Unfinished Business”)

Producers:

Nicky Higgens

Screenplay:

Neil Jones

Music:

Steve Wright

Cast:

Steve Murray: Steven Fletcher
Tim O’Leary: Philip Olivier
Abby: Lisa Hogg
Kelly: Sarah Jayne Dunn
Tanya: Claire Harman
Terry Gibson: Greg Milburn
Hotel Cashier: Pete Farrar

Sarah Dunn
prepares for a ‘date’Brookside: Unfinished Businessis the one-off DVD episode (and on video, for the uninitiated) which finallybrings the story of Tim’s wife’s murderer, Terry Gibson (Greg Milburn)to a conclusion.

Brookside itself was brought to a conclusion on Tuesday November 4th2003, when its final episode was broadcast on Channel 4. Creator Phil Redmondblamed the station’s Michael Jackson for cancelling it, hence the creation inthe final month of drug dealer Jack Michaelson, probably the soap’s firstcharacter to routinely use strong language naturally and both caused andreceived some interesting violent scenes. However, what was once a soap thatdealt with real-world issues such as unemployment, rape and drug abuse, endedup going too over-the-top and things took a turn for the worse in the mid-to-late’90s when the posh Simpson family found their children were lovers and LindseyCorkhill pulled a gun on her no-good husband Gary, to get across the fact thatshe’d really had enough.

In the last year of Brookside, most of the scripts were completelypointless. After the siege at its 20th anniversary, characters were killedoff at random or just simply left the close. The Gordon family never had a plotto cling to except moping around after their Dad was kidnapped by Gibson andlater wound up dead. This led to one of the programme’s worst-ever death sceneswhen Mother Gordon was in a traffic jam, then we were led to believe thatoff-screen she managed to hit the car in front so badly (at little or no speed?)that she cracked her head on the windscreen and when we returned to her she wassat slumped in the driver’s seat with blood pouring out of her ears. Luckyescape for her(!)

I saw most of the episodes from its last year, but fast-forwarded through mostof them and when any were devoted entirely to Mike & Rachel and/or Dr Parr &his psycho wife Gaby I don’t think I watched a minute of those since they weresuch dreadfully dull characters.

Who’s that girl?Before the soap came to a close, a rumour went around saying one or two majorcharacters would die in the final episode, namely Ron Dixon having a finalheart attack, or Jimmy Corkhill getting accidentally shot when someone brandisheda gun against the Cinerco company for wanting to buy the residents out of houseand home. It was also rumoured that with the demise of this, and the extensionof Hollyoaks to five nights a week at the same time, some of the close’soccupants would make the transition from one to another, presumably the youngercast member. This is why I thought the late introduction of the stunning LisaHogg (right), as Tim’s new girlfriend Abby, was something to substantiate thisrumour. And with the addition to the cast of this spin-off of one of theChester-based soap’s longest running actresses, Sarah Dunn (top right), I figuredshe’d be the link between the two, but since she’s someone else called Kellythen I guess that dashes those rumours, sadly.

So, back to the title in hand and we’re introduced to two new girls in the cast,call-girl Kelly (Sarah Dunn) and her flatmate Tanya (Claire Harman, bottom right), whothinks emulating her friend’s occupation will solve her huge credit card billproblems. However, her first client turns out to be you-know-who and guesswho’s called on for their limo services?

Lisa Hogg joins
Tim in his limoIt doesn’t take a genius to work outhow things will turn out, since we were told beforehand this is the finalappearance for Terry Gibson, but even for an 85-minute TV movie there’s an awfullot of padding. A couple of gory-ish moments bring about the reason for the18-certificate, but while it’ll make for a reasonable evening’s rental, it’snot worth the full asking price.

I even spotted an uncredited cameo from an old workmate, Pete Farrar,who’s now a model/actor/presenter and has appeared on BBC1’s The Heaven &Earth Show, showing up here as a hotel cashier (Hi, Pete! 🙂

Apparently Phil Redmond wants to let Brookside live on in DVD form, in a seriesof one-off specials such as this. If that’s to happen every three months asplanned, then expect the next one to be about Barry Grant (Paul Usher)who disappeared part-way into the final TV broadcast after telling the othersthat his brother Damon’s killers were being released that day. However, ifRedmond couldn’t get the viewers to watch for free, how can he realisticallyexpect them to pay a penny short of £20 a time?

Claire Harman gets
ready to meet GibsonThis special is presented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen, as the programmewas, and looks perfectly fine bitrate-wise although it still suffers from thecomparitively recent decision to “treat something shot on video to look likefilm” when they should’ve left it as it was. There’s no problems with thesound either, but not much goes on in this Dolby Surround soundstage.

The extras are as follows:

Featurette: The Story So Far (2½ mins): Well, more a brief summary of what led up to this manhunt, shown as clipsfrom the siege episodes – sometimes with and sometimes without the dodgy’pretend film’ effect, including when Gibson shot the police helicopter downand it blew up the petrol station which was never rebuilt and/or convenientlyforgot about.
Behind the scenes (18 mins): Does exactly what is says, but isn’t wildly exciting or revealing. Don’twatch it before the main feature though.
Interviews (15 mins): Between 4-6 minutes apiece with Steven Fletcher, Philip Olivier and directorAdrian Vitoria talk about their part in this drama. The interviews arereasonably interesting as they each give their take on things, but thenit was far from the best drama I’ve ever seen.
Picture Gallery:30 pics in all, with a few for each of Steven Fletcher, Philip Olivier,Sarah Jayne Dunn, Claire Harman and Greg Milburn. It says here that Sarah’scharacter is called Kelly Martindale, yet we see her credit card bill saysKelly Hall, not that it’s a big plot point, you understand.
Featurette: Ten of the Best (30 mins): Counting down in reverse order…
“Brookside: 100 Greatest Moments” trailer (1½ mins): 15 births, 23 marriages, 24 families, 70 deaths, 2932 episodes.The video/DVD release of this can’t be far off.
“Brookside: Settling Up” trailer (4 mins): Barry Grant seeks revenge on his brother’s killers. Jimmy Corkhill joins in,and the trailer also features a present-day Simon O’Brien as Damon.
Audio commentary:From the two male leads Steven Fletcher and Philip Olivier.

Most of the menus have music, the main one also mixing in clips from theprogramme. Just 8 chapters and no subtitles though, which is a shame.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS

OVERALL

Dom Robinson

Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.

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