s01e01 — A Man Lay Dead

I didn't look for the pilot, because there's a completely different actor in the main role. I started looking from here. Classic English detective story. Set in the late 1940s. Two storylines. The robbery of the monastery. Plus, there's a dinner party at a rich estate with a fancy murder game.

Of course, the interiors and costumes are gorgeous. But the actors' acting is grotesque, the scenes are drawn out, and the brawls are poorly staged. As a result, it looks more like a TV play from an amateur theater.

There was no desire to watch the series.

A noble gentleman, a true aristocrat, the youngest son of a baronet and an Oxford graduate, Roderick Alleyn serves in the London police and confidently investigates extremely complex cases together with a savvy inspector from the Fox people, nicknamed "Brother Fox".

The series is an adaptation of several detective novels by New Zealand writer Edith Ngaio Marsh. The well-born, well-educated, intelligent and observant CI Roderick Alleyn is an excellent detective and an outstanding Met officer, although for him solving crimes is not so much a job as an occupation useful to society and worthy of a gentleman. He is assisted by his loyal partner, the resourceful hard worker Inspector Fox and the artistic artist Agatha Troy.

It would seem that there should be a good literary plot with interesting stories and detailed characters. However, what was happening on the screen caused a feeling of artificiality and even falsity, an outright temporary discrepancy. The time of action is 1948, after World War II, that is, even later than the events of the series "Foyle's War", and what a wild difference in manners and style of society. Unnatural courtly dialogues, arrogant refinement and subtlety of the secular public. The first thought is that the scriptwriters imagined and transferred book stories from the 30s to the post-war ones. But no, the directors reacted very accurately to the text, apparently, the author herself stayed in the 30s, the atmosphere of a magnificent era with clubs and jazz parties did not let her go, nostalgia, perhaps...

It's also almost "pre-war" - it's boring and rustic, the installation is lengthy, the playing is average, but the main drawback is a complete anachronism.

Language. They speak well and not quickly, and there is no noticeable slang or heavy regional accent. Almost everything, except for the most refined explanations, can be understood without subtitles.

A good old unhurried English detective