The Doctor Blake Mysteries Series Three   Starring: Craig McLachlan Distributor: ITV Studios Global Entertainment RRP: £19.99 Certificate: 12 Release Date: 18 January 2016

With the fourth series of The Doctor Blake Mysteries having just started to air, it seems a convenient time to catch up on season three.

The Doctor Blake Mysteries: Season 3 (2015. 8 x 57 mins) is an Australian Drama/Mystery, staring Craig McLachlan who first found fame in Neighbours.

It’s a slickly made show, with good actors, but these shows are only successful if the writers are able to get the audience to like and empathise with the main character. Looking back at procedural shows, especially ones where the main protagonist is slightly outside of the law, the role is usually filled by either a maverick or a slightly broken psyche; Blake falls into the latter camp.

In season three he continues to work as the town's police surgeon, who solves more crimes than any of the police. Indeed all shows of this type require you accept absurdities, which would not happen in the real world. Blake works in a small town, not unlike Bergerac and similarly if the show reflects any level of reality you would depopulate the place pretty quickly, either through death or people leaving because of the town having a death rate similar to a small local war.

The point being that in the end all of these shows are a little silly if taken as a whole, but can offer up a good puzzle with engaging characters on an episode by episode basis. McLachlan makes a convincing leading man, in an unconvincing position. As well as death of the week the show continues to progress the characters more personal stories.

The disc allows you to play either all of the episodes back to back, to choose individual episodes as well as giving the option to choose individual chapters. There is the option for English subtitles as well as a choice of audio tracks, 2.0 and 5.1 Surround Sound.

It’s not a bad show and has many merits from the actors, scripts and convincing setting; it’s just that it reminded me of so many others that require you to make an investment in the characters, but if you have continued from season one I guess you have already done this. Shame the DVD set is so devoid of any extras.

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Charles Packer