page two and six: Inspector George Gently

Last night, despite the almost overwhelming attraction of Prom 69 on BBCRadio3, I settled for George Gently on BBC2. So now George, as a penance, you'll have to pay your way.
What was it all about? Was it any good?
Here's a quick summary:

A young woman is found drowned in upside down car in river
George Gently is in with his GP downloading grief
DS Jupiter is in bed with ... (Its better not to know)
The chief suspect (there's history) is local Hooray Henry
The investigation begins
Mix in standard Country House eccentricity
The young woman's father, it turns out, works on the estate
Lord B is refreshingly down to earth
His wife is awful, his son Hooray H.
Young woman was a singer with the band. Widely admired.
Signal class warfare.
OK. Cut to the chase. Who done it?
Not telling.

In terms of literary structure. The genre is Crime. The play is the detective (GG) and his sidekick (DS Bacchus). The characters are from central casting except for the young woman herself and, perhaps, Lord B. We learn about the young woman, obviously, in retrospect, through the recollections of others, which are fully realised on television. I don't know how it was done in the book. If there is a book.
[Technical note:

Director: Gillies MacKinnon
Producer: Faye Dorn
Writer: Peter Flannery

Close Technical note.]

The pace was point perfect; the pitch, nicely judged; Martin Shaw giving George Gently the right amount of gravitas and humanity. You (me) had to keep watching even though you (me) might have been trying (pretending) to read a serious discussion of the mental state of St Paul the apostle as displayed in .... (I'll have to read it again.) The conclusion was overworked. It is my one criticism. The author (scriptwriter) tried too hard. It was all very Agatha Christie and Miss Marple in the drawing room. No, she didn't do it. She explained who done it. No, she wasn't ... Oh. I give up.

So, in summary, the whole thing - in terms of what made it watchable (i.e. as a book, readable) - swings around the characters of George Gently, his Lordship and the young woman with the others bit-players, necessary but not essential; if you know what I mean.

Perhaps it was just the acting. Perhaps it was there in the writing. In terms of reading and writing, it demonstrates a truth that if one of the characters, on the page, doesn't grab the reader pretty damn quick then the reader may opt to investigate the mental state of a first century lunatic instead. (For more on this, see my future blog on The Return of the Native. Yes, Eustachia Vye, not St Paul.)

The television programme: Inspector George Gently, Series 5, Episode 2: