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Click here to return to the main site. DVD Review
Returning to his native Australia after the ending of the Second World War, Dr Blake is a haunted man. Having served in the Far East, his Chinese wife died trying to flee the fall of Singapore and he remains estranged from his daughter who has been adopted by a local family. Returning home he takes up his position as general practitioner and police surgeon only to discover that he had not left behind all the pain and murder... The Doctor Blake Mysteries: Series Two (2014. 10 eps) is a period police procedural program from Australia, staring Craig McLachlan, known for his appearances in Neighbours and Home and Away, although his catalogue is more extensive, including stage work and a recording career as a singer songwriter. To be honest I wasn’t expecting much from the program, with McLachlan’s soap work firmly planted in my mind. The show has been picked up for a third season and after watching the second you can understand why. The police procedure is a very popular format and some form of this can be found pretty much anywhere in the world in the last fifty or so decades. Inevitably it relies on the audience warming to the central character as they troll around solving crimes in a manner completely devoid of reality. The format has thrown up many famous examples, Rockford, Kojak, Miss Marple et al. The thing which makes the show successful is the central actor and Craig McLachlan, beneath his bearded persona, is barely recognisable as the surfer dude he used to play. He plays Blake as a haunted man, partially from his experiences in the prisoner of war camp, but also from the guilt he carries for not being able to save his wife or rescue his daughter. It is this sense of having failed in many ways which drives him to solve the weekly crime. This would all be fine; however the show does contain some elements of the soap opera when it comes to Blake’s private life. This cannot be helped. For the most part these types of shows rarely introduce us to the main protagonists’ private life and usually for good reason. If you want the show to run season after season, what you don’t want is for the central character to resolve his inner demons, so that section of the plot is evolving, but never ending, trapping Blake in his existential angst. It’s not a bad show and I was warming to the main character as I watched. The setting is Australia in the nineteen fifties, a place and time alien to me, but the sets and costumes are all done well and the supporting actors do a fine job. The picture palette has been washed out, producing a fairly muted picture reminiscent of the period, or at least how it is remembered. The overall tone is less flashy, more languid than a lot of similar shows, I’m not sure if that’s an Australian thing or pacing creeping in from the more soapy elements. The ten episodes are spread across three DVDs, with an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, audio is a good DD 2.0. It’s a shame that the set contains no extras. 7 Charles Packer Buy this item online
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