Amazon.com: This three-part, 1983 drama remains an honorable and largely captivating effort to adapt the unique structure of a P.D. James mystery novel to television. Despite bizarre production values--including intense lighting (presumably to accommodate the all-video shoot) and a near-absence of tone that often makes good actors look as if they're knocking about between rehearsals--the show holds up where it counts.
James's extensive, pre-murder set-up survives a script translation, and the terrific cast infuses urgency into the story of a forensic scientist (Geoffrey Palmer) bludgeoned to death by any one of many suspects: among them a hostile ex-lover (Meg Davies), her brother and the victim's boss (Barry Foster), and an angry cousin (Brenda Blethyn) living as "a friend" with the deceased's ex-wife. So many possibilities, and the rather dour but thorough Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh (Roy Marsden), burdened by the recent death of his wife, sifts through them all with deceptive impartiality and quiet self-disapprobation. --Tom Keogh
Great entertainment Roy Marsden as Inspector Dalgliesh is absolutely wonderful. He is quiet and reserved and a force to be reckoned for any criminal he encounters. These are very cagey mysteries so one must pay attention - but that is not too difficult as they are much too interesting to look away from. I have all of this series and they are all marvelous entertainment. Some of them run a bit long, so be prepared to sit a while - it will be worth it.
ONE OF MY FAVORITE OF THE SERIES because the script is compact and keeps you guessing to the very end. Because the perfomances are top notch: notably, Brenda Blethyn, who has gained such success in recent years, Barry Foster, Geoffrey Palmer, and last but not least, Roy Marsden as Cmdr. Adam Dalgliesh. His is a taut and focused performance,and we even get a glimpse of Dalgliesh as a married man, albeit too briefly, as his wife and what appears to be his unborn child die suddenly. While not fully explained in this version, the reason for their deaths is well noted in other Dalgliesh novels and productions.
We have here a government scientific operation. And the setting takes place in the countryside. We have an initial murder, not related to the major case, which brings Dalgliesh briefly to the area. He must return when a major figure at the government house meets his demise. The intricacies of plot begin here, and the characters are more fully developed than in most mysteries, giving the viewer a rather in-depth look into their various relationships, all of which are interesting.
If one is a Dalgliesh fan, Death of an Expert Witness should satisfy. It certainly kept me on the edge of my seat, as well as Marsden's crisp and terse performance.
Death to a hack screenwriter I wasted an hour on this video; fortunately I rented it from my local library. If I'd paid $5 at Walmart, I would have felt cheated. "Daytime Drama" is a kindness to the soaps; "Made for TV" is a kindness to this woodenly acted, cartoonishly written soap opera. Sledgehammers portray emotion more subtly than this rending of the P.D.JAMES novel of the same name. And to think, the Baroness James of Holland Park lived to see this excrescence. It is akin to the butchery to and perversion of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park done by a recent movie. In this "based upon" retelling of "Death of an Expert Witness", every character's sexual, marital and family problem is tossed in, like chopped lettuce, for filler on a two-hour DVD. By the time the deed was done, I was expecting six other characters to get offed, they were at least as deserving as Lorrimer, and wondering who Adam Dalgliesh was, he played such an undistinguished and irrelevant part. Rent this video, if you must, but don't buy it. Better still, pass up this bad soap opera for James's excellent book.
Mysteries like you've never seen! Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is my all time favorite tv detective. The video looks dated, but the stories are great. These mysteries keep you guessing untill the last minute. You better hit the pause key if you leave the room for a minute or ypu'll miss a vital clue... they are very subtle (Unlike some modern mysteries that give you everything in the first few minutes of the show) Watch more than one epesode and you will be hooked.
James hatsis
James1@OconeeAirService.com
Ouch ! Low budget, bad camerawork, bad acting, rotton production all around. I'm sure the story is terrific but the show is just so awful that you have a hard time getting past all the flaws. Someone else said this one was the worst produced one adn the rest are better; well they'd have to be! Really, only get this is you've alreay seen other examples because this one is enough to put you off the series for life.
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