Grantchester: Series One (2015)

Details: By Loron Hays; 27 April 2015

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grantchester: Series One - Blu-ray Review

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Time to climb aboard the Grantchester bandwagon before it leaves you in the gravel! The latest British crime drama imports wit, jazz, and murder in a scenic post-war Cambridgeshire. PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery is currently the only place to see James Runcie’s Sidney Chambers, played by James Norton. The drama circles faith, love, and solace as one war-weary vicar finds himself teaming up with a local detective, played by Robson Green, to dive into their drinks and solve murders.

Based on a series of books, Grantchester gets down to business rather quickly. With no title sequence and little fanfare, this drama explores the emotional scars both men face as a consequence of their service during World War II. Sidney, lost in the fields of Grantchester and solace in his service as a small town civar, discovers heartache when his longtime friend, Amanda (Morven Christie), tells him that she is engaged. His silence is deafening and compounded by the fact that he is to marry the two. As the series develops, Sidney and detective Geordie Keating both seek out the murder mystery route as a way to deal with the problems in their personal lives.

These are two very flawed men. The company they keep - Maguire (Tessa Peake-Jones) and Leonard Finch (Al Weaver) – keep the episodes fun and light as the two men wrestle with darker themes, like murder and mystery. The 6-episodes that make up the first season of Grantchester are, as expected, well-written, tight, and ripe with intriguing mysteries when murder goes most foul. Some episodes question a man’s faith, some his own morality, and some examine the roles played in public and private relationships. We get a stolen engagement ring, dead friends, homosexuality, and dangerous secrets; all taking place within this so-called quiet hamlet.

Norton as Chambers is probably the best part of the show. His Robert Redford good looks makes it easy for ladies to swoon for him and, looking at his many flirtations here, probably his downfall. Chambers drinks too much, smokes too much, and avoids his real feelings (as well as his PTSD) by joining Keating for another murder mystery. The final episode of the season throws a wrench in every direction you thought the show was going. While some could easily dismiss this as not living up to the novels, the careful observer will note just how scene specific the writing is. Dialogue is crisp. Sets are, too. There is a lot to appreciate about Grantchester and its continued development for PBS.

Grantchester is a series about relationships. While the criminal activity is high, the real jewel of the series are the stolen moments between the characters as they learn from their weaknesses about how to become stronger and move on from heartache and defeat. Each hour-long episode will draw you in but, while it handles the murders with a familiar manner, it will be the relationships that keep you tuning in.

Ordinary men can’t return from war undamaged. Grantchester celebrates this. You, in turn, will celebrate Grantchester on this 2-disc set from Masterpiece Mystery.

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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

grantchester: Series One - Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - April 21, 2015
Screen Formats: 1.78:1
Subtitles: English SDH
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region Encoding: A

Grantchester is brought to Blu-ray by PBS in an AVC/MPEG-4 1080p encodement that is crisp and clean with nuanced shadow details and reasonably free from excess video noise, although some does creep in from time to time. I spotted the slightest hint of aliasing around some edges that was most likely inherent to the digital source, but it would be nitpicking to say this series doesn’t look pleasing under normal viewing circumstances. Grantchester gets a lot of life out of its English DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio track. There isn't a whole lot of sound design going on to warrant a 5.1 track. Being primarily dialogue heavy, the stereo channels see plenty of action, but when the pace picks up and things get interesting, there is plenty of imaging happening to make this a splendid audio track.

Supplements:

Commentary:

None

Special Features:

With little insight into the show, the supplemental material found with this release is a bit disappointing. Interviews are quick, the behind-the-scenes glimpses even quicker. The only thing of real value is the making-of featurette and, yet, even that seems a bit hollow. Maybe things will improve for Series Two when it comes to supplemental material.