Review of Minder: Specials Vol. 2 Of 2

Introduction

Clearvision has again raided the Fremantlemedia archives for episodes of the popular Thames Television series "Minder". In this package, we get the Boxing Day 1988 special "An Officer and a Car Salesman", and the Christmas Day 1991 special "The Cruel Canal".

"Officer" features Dennis Waterman as Terry, and pits him and Arfur (George Cole) against Richard Briers and Taggart`s Mark McManus among others.

In 1991, Gary Webster took over as Arfur`s Minder and "The Cruel Canal" sees him suffering the usual indignities of being involved in one of Arfur`s shady schemes.

These two specials come towards the back end of the series` popularity, and the Gary Webster version of the show is a shadow of the glory days at the start of the series. One for completists, I`d say.

Video

There are some video artefacts, showing that the discs were prepared from a videotape dupe of the 16mm originals of the series. There is also some film dirt and print weave, although the image is satisfactory. Colours and contrast are what you would expect of a film-mastered British series of the time.

Audio

Dolby 2.0 Mono, and not particularly strong at that. Menu soundtracks seemed a lot louder than the episodes themselves.

Features

As usual there are no subtitles. The extras comprise a set of unidentified clips from series 5-8; a guide to the show; and cast and credit options (which play the end titles of the episodes).

Conclusion

All in all pretty disappointing. A bare-bones package best found at a bare-bones price.