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- 44
Put me down as a one-time casual viewer. The first time round - particularly in the first half of its run - I was younger than the show’s intended audience, but I do remember watching occasional episodes. Not that I remember much beyond the basics: dashing John Nettles driving round in that burgundy Triumph Roadster; Charlie Hungerford chewing a cigar and grinning; nice, frumpy Annette Badland fielding phone calls; Louise Jameson as a love interest and Liza Goddard as the Ice Maiden (the kind of name a kid latches onto as it sounds rather like a supervillainess. I was probably disappointed that she had no obvious superpowers).
Oh, and George Fenton’s moody bass blended in with typically Gallic sounds.
1.01-1.04
My memory is of a series filled to the brim with sunshine, so it was a little eye-opening that a number of these opening episodes were filmed in less then clement weather. All the outdoors scenes look a bit grey, including a walk on a blustery beach and a scene in which Jim talks to a woman having breakfast out by the pool, wearing sunglasses and a thick coat while black clouds loom ominously and the surface shows evidence of recent rainfall. Not that this is a problem. Jim is a resident on Jersey, not a tourist, and these stories are evidently filmed - and possibly set - out of season. Pretty as it looks, though, Jersey would have made more of an impression had it been sunny. Other scenes appear more sunny, so I suppose it’s the luck of the draw on filming days.
The series did open with a reasonably ambitious stunt, though, involving two planes, an old van and some conspicuously placed empty barrels.
Naturally, Jim himself was on the larger passenger plane and quickly got involved. I’m getting a sense of how this series works and there’s a little contrivance. Jim keeps bumping into the right people at the right time, who conveniently feed him clues which are helpful to his investigation. I find it endearing.
John Nettles is very watchable. He’s not a traditional hunk, but is ruggedly attractive in an accessible way, and this is paired with an engaging charisma. There’s a sense that he’s a people person, and this makes his connections with people - core cast and visiting faces alike - completely believable.
I’m intrigued by the way John’s Cornish accent can be heard occasionally, with the rhoticity the dead giveaway. I’m not sure if this is close to a Jersey accent, or even if Jim himself is meant to be a lifetime native of the island.
It seems Robert Banks Stewart enjoys giving his protagonists flaws. Around six years ago, I revisited Shoestring - another BBC detective series from the creator that immediately preceded this series - and loved the thread of Eddie Shoestring finding his way back after a nervous breakdown. Echoing this, Jim Bergerac is a newly sober alcoholic who has blown his marriage and damaged his health and consequently his career. Like Eddie Shoestring, there is already a sense of the unorthodox to his methods. He is not a by-the-book police detective and it feels this is going to bite him on the backside at any moment.
It feels some good may have come out of the end of his marriage. Jim’s now-ex-wife comes across as very snarky and shrewish in her initial appearances. It’s one-sided, of course because we don’t fully know what she’s gone through, so it’s probable this is partly a defence mechanism or her way of dealing with the breakdown of the marriage. Still, one can’t help feeling he’s had a lucky break, even as I’ve enjoyed the verbal sparring between them.
And Jim’s now-ex-father-in-law shows promise as well. I remember Charlie Hungerford being a reliable figure in this series, but I’d actually forgotten how they were related. I also thought of Charlie as being quite upmarket but it’s made clear here that he’s a rogue who has made his money through dodgy dealings and is now revelling in flashing his cash. It’s a little refreshing to see an older wealthy person in a British series who isn’t old money. Charlie is as nouveau riche as they come. Terence Alexander makes Charlie affable, despite his rough edges, and even four episodes in there’s a sense that Charlie and Jim quite like one another and their verbal sparring is a way of showing that affection. It promises to be one of the best pairings in this series.
I’m always impressed by people who speak languages with any degree of fluency. John Nettles speaks some French. Annette Badland’s French sounds impressively natural. Cécile Paoli speaks English well enough, even if the language barrier can sometimes read as stilted or detached.
Sean Arnold’s face is very familiar. I would have watched him in both this and Grange Hill even though I don’t specifically remember the roles. So far he’s very promising as the authority figure clashing with Jim.
Familiar guests have included Floella Benjamin (strangely dubbed with an American accent in all her scenes); Simon Cadell (playing a bit of a nasty, most unlike Jeffrey Fairbrother); Ian Hendry and Prunella Scales.
At 55 minutes per episode, the pacing feels quite slow to me at times. I wasn’t expecting excitement, but there are times I don’t feel as invested as I could and sometimes the story feels stretched a little thin. I feel episodes could benefit from being five to ten minutes shorter, but I’m also hopeful this will improve.
The stories are fine, though. I haven’t yet been wowed, but that wasn’t really the expectation with a gentle series like this. Several scenes have been grittier than I’d have thought - such as the drugs mule being beaten up, which was mostly suggestion, but it was still enough - and I’m sure a couple were borderline daring for the time (the gay twist in the second episode could be seen coming from a mile away from a 2026 vantage point, but was probably surprising at the time).
The dialogue feels mostly very natural and real. Very few lines have jumped out at me - which I’ve noticed more because I’ve struggled to find a quote that would sum up the series or lead character to use in the thread title - but there was one particularly funny line used when Jim was trying to find a trace of an unusual perfume while interrogating a female journalist, causing her to snap at him:
The score has been appropriate, but something that leapt out at me with the fourth episode was that almost all the music used was recognisable as the same stock music used in Sons and Daughters and Prisoner (with one piece also making it across to Dallas in that musician’s strike immediately post Who Shot JR?). I wonder if this will continue. I hope so.
