Review of Foyle`s War: Bleak Midwinter/Casualties Of War

Introduction

Sunday night has long been the night of ITV`s big-budget telly `tec dramas. It`s traditionally the day of week where we like to relax at the end of the week and see some member of Her Majesty`s Constabulary leisurely investigate some series of murders and bring the miscreants to justice. Barnaby patrols the means streets of Midsomer, the TV murder capital of England, and Frost takes his battered hat and raincoat around Denton, but these are contemporary tecs.

Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen) is also a policeman in the same illustrious line of telly tecs above, but this one patrols Hastings during the 1940`s on the British Home Front. Aided by Sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell) and MTS driver Sam Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks), Foyle comes up against people murdered who are linked to a whole series of events/issues unique to the wartime situation; black market, saboteurs, espionage, secret weapons tests and the list goes on. Sometimes death is just a result of human greed or lust.

This release of two episodes is in actual fact the complete 5th series of this series. There is a 6th series to come of three more episodes which is apparently the last.

Bleak Midwinter - It`s December 1942 and a young female munitions worker dies in what initially appears to be a tragic accident. Paul Milner`s wife comes back into his life after leaving him 2½ years earlier as a result of his war injury, but Milner has met someone else and isn`t interested. When she`s found dead, Milner seems to be the prime suspect based on the evidence but Foyle is convinced the two cases are linked.

Casualties of War - Milner is investigating an illegal gambling gang and almost comes a cropper, being saved by two young lads with more money than they should have. Foyle is investigating a series of acts of sabotage in the area and getting nowhere, when his attention is diverted by the murder of a schoolteacher at an open but secret weapons testing facility. Are all these cases linked?

Video

Good broadcast quality picture, some of the outside shots are not as colourful (or not as deep) as the set shots, but that`s just standard stuff. There`s an element of CGI with the integration of some of the bouncing bomb test footage into the relevant episode. It`s not great but it kind of works.

Audio

Solid Dolby digital soundtrack, but no subtitles which is a big no-no.

Features

Behind The Scenes - brief 6 minute bit of EPK, nothing special at all.

Filmographies - thought we`d seen the last of this type of extra, but here we get assorted iMDB-type entries for the three main cast.

Production Notes - text based and very brief.

Conclusion

I have to admit that I`m a bit of a sucker for Sunday evening murders, I watch most of them (mostly a couple of days after to fast forward through the ads, but hey…) and this one is certainly up there with the best. It sounds a little odd, but Foyle`s War has quite a bit in common with the new and improved version of Battlestar Galactica. Bet you didn`t think you`d ever hear that, did you? Thing is, whilst both are trying to tell fairly conventional stories, both also try to spin stories around the practical problems that face countries/communities in their own rather unique circumstances.

I like the idea of trying to tie in the motivations of murderers around crimes of the day such the black market and also the impact that the war situation has on the need for survival against the more basic demands of justice. Both Foyle and Adama face the same questions and both generally dislike the politics that get in the way. There it ends though, as Foyle in particular is a staid man of uniform who isn`t at the top of the food chain and thus finds himself clashing with authority in his quest to serve justice.

Michael Kitchen is quite superb as the rather downbeat Foyle, but his blank façade hides a cunning mind and grim determination to do his job. Anthony Howells is not quite as quiet but nearly and is clearly the young successor, the wartime injury that led him to be Foyle`s sidekick essentially forgotten until it becomes important to the plot. Honeysuckle Weeks is great as somewhat dippy seeming and posh driver Sam, a character who actually helps Foyle solve his cases more than either would probably like to admit.

Week`s character is a cultural oddity of the time in itself but helps to highlight the fact that women of that time were expected to work doing what were previously jobs reserved for men, despite my constantly thinking that Foyle should really have driven himself around. The episode Bleak Midwinter is a perfect example of this, showing women working in a highly dangerous munitions factory making armaments for `the boys` and getting paid far less than their male counterparts for the job. It is one of this nation`s greatest disgraces that their efforts in stepping up to the mark and equalling, if not surpassing, their male counterparts was not recognised more and that at the end of hostilities were told that their services were no longer required. It`s a burden that I believe is still being carried to this day. In the workplace, gender should not have an effect on pay. It`s effort, experience and results that should determine how much any person is paid, not whether you go to work in a skirt.

This series, along with others, is proof positive that ITV can make decent dramas. They just don`t do enough of them, preferring instead to fill their schedules with cheap and `cheerful` programmes of the reality or soap ilk. What strikes me most about this situation with this release is that most soaps are now on anywhere from three to five nights and this `series` is only two episodes long. Short runs for quality drama are now the norm and this is wrong. Maybe advertising rates are at all time low or maybe ITV execs just want profits the size of BP or any of the British banks, but that still doesn`t make it right. ITV have also dragged the BBC down this path as well and the future doesn`t bode well for TV as a medium as things stand. A series like this is the exception when it should be the rule.