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- Cert:
- Cat.no: 0786062
- Running time: 377 minutes
- Year: 2000
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 66 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: 2 * DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: On Set With Randall & Hopkirk, Randall & Hopkirk (deleted) outtakes,Music Video
Directors:
- Charlie Higson, Mark Mylod and Rachel Talalay
Producer:
- Charlie Higson
Screenplay:
- Charlie Higson
Music:
- David Arnold and Tim Simenon
Cast:
- Marty Hopkirk: Vic Reeves
Jeff Randall: Bob Mortimer
Jeannie Hurst: Emilia Fox
Wyvern: Tom Baker
Some things are better left alone. I never saw the original series of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased),but comedians Vic and Bob, aka Vic Reeves – as the dead crime partnerMarty Hopkirk – and Bob Mortimer as the alive one, Jeff Randall, sawfit to recreate it along with Fast Show regular Charlie Higson.
Why should they have left it alone? Because it’s far from original and farfrom making much sense or being particularly entertaining even though I didmanage to sit through the whole series (the same cannot be said of series 2.I gave it a few minutes but that was enough).
Emilia Fox plays Jeannie Hurst, the wife-to-be of Marty before he diedand, since only Jeff can see him, she doesn’t know Marty’s still around, whichleaves the way clear for Jeff to make a play for her. Yes, you can see wherethis is going. Tom Baker reappears as the increasingly eccentric (oris that just him?) Wyvern, Marty’s guide in the world of the dead, helping himout so he can still solve crime and walk amongst the living.
You can tell this series had a high budget given the many guest appearancesfrom the likes of Hugh Laurie, Charles Dance, Steven Berkoff, Martin Clunes,Jessica Stevenson, Paul Whitehouse and screenwriter/producer/co-directorCharlie Higson.
It wasn’t just the picture that was cut in half!
Marty Hopkirk died unfairly – and so did the anamorphic 16:9 picture in whichthis TV series was filmed. If it wasn’t content by being stretched in a bizarrefashion that has happened to a few BBC dramas in recent years, another beingthe ill-fated Out of Hours, everyone was given fat heads. In otherwords, whoever converted the picture make a kingsize cock-up of it.
It looks like they took the 16:9 widescreen picture, chopped off the edgesto get the 14:9 less-wide version that you’ll see on analogue TV and stretchedthat out sideways to fill the 16:9 frame. By using your TV’s “Just” or “SuperZoom” (or similar) mode, if watching on a widescreen TV, it will just aboutcompensate for most of the irregularities here…
That is until some incredible idiot does what happened with Granada’sCold Feet Series 1 & 2and just issues a 4:3-centre-cropped version of what was broadcast. What thebloody hell were they thinking, especially given the programme’s reliance onspecial effects that utilise the full width of the screen?
To add insult to injury, it turns out that this series, while shown in regularDolby Surround on TV, was filmed in Dolby Digital 5.1 which is included hereand has its moments, but if I was going to watch this again I’d go back andview the 16:9 anamorphic version I recorded from SkyDigital, however low theBBC bitrate is, rather than the hacked-in-half piece here. Oh dear.
While disc one contains episodes 1-4, the second has the last two plus allthe extras starting with a mini-featurette, On Set With Randall & Hopkirk -a 46-minute tour of the set and featuring interviews with Vic, Bob, Emilia,Tom plus several of the guest stars and one of the stars from the originalseries, Kenneth Cope (Marty Hopkirk), who now plays dim-witted pensionerRay in Brookside. This featurette made in 4:3, programme clips from the series are in 14:9.
Randall & Hopkirk (deleted) is 4½ minutes of out-takes from theseries where things did not quite go to plan. These clips are in an even morebizarre halfway house ratio of 15:9 (1.66:1). Who was in charge here?
Finally we have the Music Video for the theme tune, composed byDavid Arnold and sung by Nina Persson from The Cardigans. To addinsult, to insult, to injury, this 4-minute video is the only thing actuallypresented in 16:9, albeit non-anamorphic.
There are 11 chapters per episode, so 66 in all, no subtitles, but the mainmenus are animated with clips from the show and scored with the theme tune.
Overall, I could have recommended this to fans of the series, given the DD5.1soundtrack, but not at all since the picture has been so badly butchered. Avoid.
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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.