Posted by Holly Ordway in Reviews | 0 Comments
DVD Review – Cadfael, Set 4
Cadfael, a BBC series starring Derek Jacobi in the title role, takes viewers on a journey to medieval England: specifically to Shrewsbury in the twelfth century, where in the midst of civil war the monks of Shrewsbury Abbey carry on as best they can. Brother Cadfael stands out among the more conventional monks by virtue of his keen interest in medicine and what we’d call today forensics, and so he’s often called on to solve various crimes and mysteries taking place in the community.
Acorn Media has consistently been releasing the Cadfael series on DVD both in individual DVDs and boxed season sets (see the review of Set 3). Cadfael Set 4 includes all three episodes from 1998, the BBC series’ fourth and final season: The Pilgrim of Hate, The Potter’s Field, and The Holy Thief. All three seventy-five-minute episodes are based on novels of the same name by Ellis Peters, who penned a total of twenty Brother Cadfael novels over the course of seventeen years, from 1977 to 1994.
The Pilgrim of Hate offers an interesting murder case in which the first mystery is the identity of the victim: an anonymous body in a leather sack is discovered among the effects of a motley assortment of pilgrims who have come to the abbey on “Cripples’ Day” in hopes of a miraculous cure. The characters in this episode are reasonably well-drawn: several sibling pairs (two brothers and a brother and sister) offer relationships that are on the surface loving and charitable, but underneath reveal a darker nature.
The Potter’s Field is my favorite of the three episodes in this set. A woman’s body turns up in a field donated to the abbey by a potter who has decided to give up his profession and join the order. Is it the body of the potter’s wife, who has been missing? Is it someone else? In either case, who did it? Cadfael’s investigations turn up a variety of dangerous secrets and murderous motivations in many seemingly-innocent townsfolk, including the potter himself; the story is even a bit overly complex for its running time, but it’s entertaining viewing.
The Holy Thief is the weakest by far of the three Cadfael episodes included in this set. Hinging around a rival abbey’s desire to get its hands on the bones of St. Winifred, the patron saint (and money-maker) of Shrewsbury Abbey, The Holy Thief is incoherently plotted, with the focus of the story wavering among a handful of underdeveloped sub-threads. The characters’ motivations are unclear, and the plot is awkward and contrived, with the result that Cadfael’s unraveling of the mystery is less than compelling.
Originally written for DVDTalk. Read the full review here.
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