Review of Minder: Series 6

Introduction

Minder Series Six draws to a close the original run of the show. Dating back to those dark, evil days of 1985, only six episodes were made and it would be four years before the series was given another chance.

The show had always had something of an identity crisis - was it a thick-ear drama like its predecessor "The Sweeney" or was it a comedy? George Cole`s presence as Arfur Daley had tended the programme towards the more light-hearted, but the fashion of the day was for gritty realism so Terry continued to indulge in fisticuffs.

As a light drama show, "Minder" was a classic. For the last season of their initial run, Terry and Arfur dabbled in landscape gardening and car phones, met a safecracker with a talent for blowing himself up, faked Arfur`s death and crossed paths with the Russians. In the final story, Arfur`s Machiavellian wiles ultimately proved too much for Terry.

The show was full of familiar faces in Season Six - James Booth, Jan Francis, John Bluthal, Pat Roach, Michael Gothard and Rula Lenska, in addition to the regulars such as Glyn Edwards as Dave the Barman, Patrick Malahide as cheery DS Chisholm and Michael Povey as his long-suffering sidekick DC Jones. The show had settled into a formula, and possibly therein lay the problem - the mid eighties were a killing field for tv shows that were seen in any way as being "safe".

Video

Clearvision have not been supplied with pristine masters for this release. Far from it, there is a fair amount of wear and tear visible from the film elements, but it is evident from some video artefacts that the master for these discs is a videotape copy of the original film material. The original episodes were shot on low-light stock processed by Technicolor, which will account for the amount of film grain visible. At the time of writing, I`m unsure whether "Minder" was shot on 35mm or 16mm but given the grain and production economies typical of the 1980s I`d say the latter was probable.

Audio

Being a tv show, the soundtrack would receive the lowest priority other than being a serviceable, monaural soundtrack and that`s exactly what you get here - courtesy of Dolby Digital 2.0 encoding.

Features

Disc One carries a text interview with series creator Leon Griffiths, and Disc Two carries a set of episode trailers for Season Seven (made in 1989). There are various navigation options to see the three episodes per disc, as well as some production information. Subtitles are conspicuous by their absence.

Conclusion

"Minder" was rollicking fun for its time, a sort of "Sweeney-Lite" at a time when tv was turning distinctly nasty. After Season Six, Dennis Waterman`s connection to the series would only last for one more season. If you`ve been collecting the series, you`ll definitely want this season, but if you`re new to "Minder" and you want to know what all the fuss is about you might be better trying Season Three.