Jonathan Creek

[Bob The Skutter]

I've just got around to watching the Jonathan Creek Christmas Special from last Christmas, and it seems ok so far, but nothing fantastic, but it's piqued my curiosity as to what the rest of the show is like. I just noticed there is a complete box set on Amazon for £24.97 and I'm just wondering if it's worth the blind buy?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I love Jonathan Creek! The first three seasons, anyway. Jonathan and Maddie were a great double act. The girl from the fourth season, I didn't really like her at all. (However, the episode with Tasmin Grieg from that season was absolutely hilarious.) If you want an offbeat mystery series, Jonathan Creek is solid stuff.

 

[SiorX]

^IAWTC

I really like the first few seasons. You can't take it too seriously, but it's clever in a deliberately cheesy kind of way. The sort of stories not even Poirot would get away with. And Caroline Quentin and Alan Davies work really well together.

 

[auntiehill]

I absolutely LOVE this show. No, "adore" would be a better term. The puzzles are fascinating and fun, but the real joy is in the characters. The best pairing is definitely Maddie & Jonathan (Caroline Quentin and Alan Davies). They had a real chemistry together--whether if was affectionate or just the sheer intensity of the antagonism. The dialogue is witty and the background stories are usually pretty humorous.

It is totally worth a blind buy.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I decided to go ahead and order it. I decided it's cheap enough that even if I don't particularly like it it's not a big loss, and if I enjoy it then it's a big saving on the RRP.

 

[Deckerd]

Boring trivia fact: the replacement to Caroline Quentin was Julia Sawalha (of Saffy fame) and she and Alan Davies hit it off so well that they ended up living together for a couple of years.

 

[Cky]

It's definatly worth buying Bob, the final series however, drops in quality because Caroline Quentin left the series, but the others are great.

 

[Starkers]

The show is great, but the quality definitely tailed off in the later seasons--though it still is enjoyable. Have to echo everyone else though and say Jonathan and Maddie were the best pairing. His companions have got younger and sexier, but curiously not as good!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I thought Sheridan Smith was pretty good, but then I haven't seen the rest of the show to compare.
I wonder if this christmas special was testing the waters for some more episodes, like the Rab C Nesbitt one?

 

[Deckerd]

What did you think of that Rab C speshul? I thought it was unbelievably crude and unfunny.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I thought there was a couple of laughs in it, but all in all not that good. I did try watching some of the older ones they repeated too, I can't say I found them all that funny either. I think maybe it's a product of its time and just doesn't work that well now?
But it did get commissioned for a new series out of it.

 

[Starkers]

I thought Sheridan Smith was pretty good, but then I haven't seen the rest of the show to compare.
I wonder if this christmas special was testing the waters for some more episodes, like the Rab C Nesbitt one?

Sheridan Smith was quite good actually, better than Julia Sawallah who was lumbered with a very unlikable character sadly, but the chemistry between Davies and Caroline Quentine is just brilliant.

The christmas special was odd, there was too much extraneous stuff going on and it was far too long. They seemed to forget the actual mystery of the locked room for large parts as well.

 

[auntiehill]

I think "The Scented Room" and "The Black Canary" have some of my favorite mysteries.

One of my favorite lines from the show came from "Scented Room:"

Before we get started, I need to find a mirror first.

Why?

So I can remind myself what a stupid git looks like.

 

[Deckard]

At 25 quid I think the set is definately worth a blind buy.

As others have said series 1 to 3 are the shows best and Jonathan and Maddie had the best chemistry onscreen.

That isn't to say that series 4 was bad but it did lose some of the earlier magic that the show had, which I put down to two problems the first of which was replacing Maddie with Carla, not that Julia Sawalha did a bad job but it has to be said that Caroline Quentin was a hard act to follow. The second problem with the last series was the change and tone of the mysteries, instead of the quaint, suburban and rural settings of the first three series, series two instead focused its mysteries in more metropolitan, urban environments and this caused the series to lose some of its charm.

My favourites from the show are

"Black Canary" (best mystery, really couldn't get close to working this one out)
"Danse Macabre"
"Ghosts (or is it Ghost's) Forge"
"Mother Redcap"
"The Problem at Gallows Gate
"The Three Gamblers"
"The Tailor's Dummy"
"The House of Monkeys"

 

[auntiehill]

At 25 quid I think the set is definately worth a blind buy.

As others have said series 1 to 3 are the shows best and Jonathan and Maddie had the best chemistry onscreen.

That isn't to say that series 4 was bad but it did lose some of the earlier magic that the show had, which I put down to two problems the first of which was replacing Maddie with Carla, not that Julia Sawalha did a bad job but it has to be said that Caroline Quentin was a hard act to follow. The second problem with the last series was the change and tone of the mysteries, instead of the quaint, suburban and rural settings of the first three series, series two instead focused its mysteries in more metropolitan, urban environments and this caused the series to lose some of its charm.

My favourites from the show are

...."Mother Redcap"

I really like that one, too. It has humor, horror and a neat little side mystery to go with the major one. I've seen it more times than I care to admit.

 

[Captain Shaw]

What did you think of that Rab C speshul? I thought it was unbelievably crude and unfunny.

I am i the only one who had trouble understanding the accents?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

What did you think of that Rab C speshul? I thought it was unbelievably crude and unfunny.

I am i the only one who had trouble understanding the accents?

I think that's kinda the point to Rab. Not only are the accents strong, but they're also a bunch of piss heads.

 

[Captain Shaw]

What did you think of that Rab C speshul? I thought it was unbelievably crude and unfunny.

I am i the only one who had trouble understanding the accents?

I think that's kinda the point to Rab. Not only are the accents strong, but they're also a bunch of piss heads.

Trouble was i could not tell what people was laughing at.
And this is from a women who had no trouble understanding father Jack

 

[Deckerd]

I am i the only one who had trouble understanding the accents?

I think that's kinda the point to Rab. Not only are the accents strong, but they're also a bunch of piss heads.

Trouble was i could not tell what people was laughing at.
And this is from a women who had no trouble understanding father Jack

They weren't laughing at anything funny that's for sure. The accents are actually normed since they are all thesps and wouldn't really do a Glasgow accent (see Ford Kiernan's various neds and hard men in Chewin' the Fat for a comparison).