Rosemary & Thyme - The Complete Series

The hit British series that combines glorious gardens with classic whodunits

Stunning gardens provide the backdrop for this hit British mystery series starring Felicity Kendal (Good Neighbors, The Camomile Lawn) as Rosemary Boxer and Pam Ferris (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Matilda) as Laura Thyme, professional gardeners and amateur sleuths. From their former careers as a university plant biologist and a police officer, Rosemary and Laura bring unique investigative talents to their horticultural and human mysteries.

Locations featured in the series include manor houses in the English countryside; London's Kew Gardens and Regent's Park; the French Riviera and Italy's Ligurian coast; a Surrey vineyard and the hills of Málaga, Spain. Guest stars include Anthony Andrews, Oliver Ford Davies, Phyllida Law, Julian Wadham, Margaret Tyzack and Michael Maloney. Great fun for mystery fans and green thumbs alike! As seen on public television.

DVD SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE an interview with Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris, production notes, location notes, photo galleries, cast filmographies, and a trivia quiz.

BBC Rosemary and Thyme

I am very happy with this series. Being a Master Gardener for 20 years I especially like the botanical names being used correctly. The mysteries are fun and not gursome. The Photograpy of the gardens they work in lets one see the plants and the whole gardening landscape. The story lines are fun and I am very happy I preordered this series. I will look for other precorders as this save me a lot of money . July 23, 2008

Terrific DVD set

When my wife and I first saw the series it was on public television, and not the best signal. However, in addition to enjoying the stories we enjoyed the beautiful scenery. After viewing the original material on DVD we realized what we were missing. The color and clarity of the picture is beautiful. It is like seeing the stories for the first time. Rosemary & Thyme - The Complete Series The public station had also made cuts in the stories so we are now able to see the complete episodes. Watching these stories is something we really enjoy doing together. We congratulate the producers for such a fine job and thank both them and Amazon for having the DVD set available.
For what you are getting when you buy this DVD set the price is very cheap. I highly recommend this DVD set to anyone that likes the telling of a good tale and also likes seeing the beauty of nature. April 18, 2008

Beautiful Gardens

Terrific acting plus visits to beautiful gardens make the complete series worth watching over and over again. One wonders why these two business partners and friends don't develop a complex since murder follows them to every garden job, but it is wonderful fun! Wish there were more adventures to the series. March 28, 2008

Great fun.

Mysteries of this type are both fun and interesting. The acting was good and I am enjoying it immmensly. March 28, 2008

Miss Marple and her clone leave her garden to tend those of others.

It's well known that Brits generally do murder better than Yanks (or anyone else, for that matter). This trend started with Conan Doyle and continues right down to the present moment. Part of the reason for this is that Brit mysteries are genteel and intelligent. Yank mysteries are often written as if the main audience consists of cave men. Which is, alas, all too true. Even so, the Brit example is starting to sink in on this side of the pond. Virtually all of the main characters in superb series such as "Bones" and "Numbers" consist of nerds who actually use 3- and 4-syllables (and bigger) words. They also omit gratuitous violence (tiresome) and profanity (even more tiresome). Readers may also recall the spectacular success of "Murder She Wrote", set among the rural beauty of the Murder Capital of New England, Cabot Cove. Genteel, engaging, beautifully filmed, this was everything a good mystery ought to be. If you actually like urban grunge and gritty plotting, but want something from the Brits in that line, there's always Helen Mirren's "Prime Suspect". This is really good grunge and grit, especially if you want Brit quality instead of slipshod Yank stuff that uses gratuitous violence to distract you from the vapidity of what you're watching.

The problem is that good Brit mysteries outnumber Yank ones as the Chinese outnumber the Brits. This first decade of the 21st Century is no exception. From 2003 to 2007 we were treated to the wonderful "Rosemary and Thyme". All indications are that after 3 seasons (03, 04, 06/07) and 2 specials (04, 05), R&T are through. Well, we still have the long-running "Midsomer Murders" and the more recent "The Last Detective".

Rosemary Boxer (played wonderfully by Felicity Kendal) and Laura Thyme (played even better if possible by Pam Ferris) meet by chance as the latter's husband is deserting her. They go into business as professional gardeners and go about (mostly) rebuilding decrepit plantings. Lo and behold, very shortly they have a body in their garden. Unlike the Midsomer people, the R&T people spread the wealth of death around, taking their characters to beautiful places in England, France, Italy, and Spain. The gardens are often spectacular, and even if not (one episode involves a lawn; another, a grape grove), there is usually a beautiful and/or interesting building to compensate. What we don't get is the American favorite, (ugh!) urban grunge.

The mysteries themselves are all to brief - all episodes but 2 longer ones are only 48 minutes (as opposed to, say, 100 for Midsomer). In the beginning the girls don't solve the murder so much as they flush the guilty party into the waiting arms of the police. Mostly, however, they work out whodunit. These are good little conundrums, but it would be nice if they had more time in which to get worked out.

The scripts are clever and witty, informed by an insidious sense of humor. They're full of hilarious throwaway quips and verbal exchanges. This tendency reaches its height in the last episode in the set (the 2005 special), "The Cup of Silence". Here we get an actual black-out skit, á la Ernie Kovacs, which we should call "The Donkey Shop". It proceeds from the outré premise that somebody would actually try to make a go of a gift shop that sells nothing but donkey-related items. This builds in an exchange right out of Monty Python that leads to one of the most wonderful puns I've ever heard.

Besides, any series that dares to have one of its characters quote the immortal limerick, "While Titian was mixing rose madder", can do no wrong.

OK. Tiziano (Titian) Tecelli (1477-1571!) was a great artist. Despite its name, rose madder (root of the plant of the same name) is a brilliant red, often referred to a "true" red. OK, I had to look up the dates.

Aside from the witty scripts, the acting is on a par with them. There are several talented guest stars, including the brilliant Phyllida Law. One of the stars is a gizmo - that used to steam the grape groves in "Cup of Silence". Bless us, holy Rube Goldberg!!

R&T comes on 9 DVDs in a compact case. The discs are just a little difficult to remove. The aspect is 16x9. Typical of Brit programs (and this is a serious flaw), there are no subtitles. One of the "special features" actually is special. The first DVD for each season (or "series", as the Brits refer to it) contains a featurette on the locations used for that season. These are informative and have some beautiful footage. The rest is silence (of which, as previously noted, you can get a whole cup with the last disc).

Note on the lack of subtitles: luckily, the actors' diction is particularly precise and clear overall. Subtitles are not quite the necessity they normally are, although people who don't hear well, or at all, will find this lack damn inconsiderate.

As you might have figured, I highly recommend this collection. It will give you 18 hours of viewing pleasure at a cost only a couple of inches of shelf space.
March 9, 2008

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