Miss Marple: Volume One [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

This is a superb blu-ray: the quality of the picture is shockingly good. I remember watching this when it was first broadcast and also more recently on repeat TV channels but it's never looked anywhere so crisp and clear. The image and sound quality is so good it could easily have been filmed this year even though it was actually originally filmed on video. I'm very impressed with the restoration here.For anyone who has not seen the BBC Miss Marple series, they are a triumph and remain the most faithful and high quality adaptations of Agatha Christie's series. As others have said, Joan Hickson IS Miss Marple; she was a truly superb actress and is entirely convincing in the role.In terms of the quality of the serials, all are very good and very faithful to the books. The 3 volumes cover all 12 books and are presented in order of the BOOK publications - however the actual TV series was made in a different order. For example the 1st book Murder at the Vicarage was filmed later and it shows as there is a reference by Inspector Slack to having met Miss Marple already. But this is very minor - each story stands on its own and can be watched in whatever order the viewer likes.The only shame here is that the brilliant remastered series is only available in the UK via import (with hefty Customs duties to pay). It has been made by BBC Worldwide (the commercial arm of the BBC) but there is still no reason it could not be made available here as they are also responsible for the BBC's UK DVDs/Blu-rays etc. It's a real shame that access to this for the UK audience is currently so limited; I'm sure it'd be popular here.

Joan Hickson is the definitive Miss Marple , having been handpicked by Agatha Christie herself , having seen her on stage in 1946. "I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple" she wrote to Joan...and play her she did , becoming in many eyes the definitive version of the character on screen , including the Queen as her many fans.These 12 films were great then (1984-1992) and are great today, back in the day when the BBC focused on getting great drama right : from great casting , great screenplay adaptation and obsessing over getting the period details right , rather than today's approach of rewriting a story to fit modern woke values and alienating about 90% of the potential audience in the process.As for the transfer to Blu ray: simply stunning . The series was shot entirely on 16mm film and therefore this is true HD as the original A/B rolls of film were sourced and scanned. Gone is the film dirt and grain and washed out colours and in its place you have crystal clear clarity and vivid colours . The sumptuous production and period detail can be appreciated like never before .

Wonderful to have these in crisp and colourful HD! The image quality is simply amazing. I've seen them all a hundred times before but have really never appreciated just how lavishly they were made. Each shot is a treat in itself and the episodes feel timeless in a way that sometimes isn't the case when watching the washed out DVD versions.It's a shame that there's no UK release for the restored episodes but they play fine on my player, and better a US version than none at all. I like the bonus feature, which is the first episode of Lucy Worlsey's documentary about the British obsession with murder. Something about Miss Marple or about the restoration process would have been a nice addition, but the lack of such doesn't come close to knocking off a star for me.As I write, this is the only volume that's been released. In an age when you can get everything right now, it seems appropriate that Miss Marple will make us wait a couple of months for volume two.

was waiting to see if it was ever going to be released in UK but bit the bullet and went for this import. Service was excellent and it arrived with 14 days. If you are familiar with the original BBC series it always suffered from the film it was shot on. Slightly blurred and it hasn't stood the test of time. However these remastered episodes in High Defiintion look magnificent and being that this is the definitive Miss Marple it is timeless and doesn't look dated at all. I only hope they will now start doing the same for other BBC filmed series from the 70s and 80s.

If you are hesitating about buying this blu-ray set, hesitate no longer. Buy it now!As other reviewers have said, if you are UK based, do not worry about it being Region 1, it plays perfectly on any UK region 2 player, complete with english subtitles if you need them. The picture and sound are a huge improvement over the old UK DVD sets, and I cannot praise these sets highly enough (this applies to all 3 sets which, between them, make up the complete collection.) I'm afraid you will have to cope with tiresome adverts for inferior series at the start of each disc, but you can jump through these quickly.I do not need to spend very much time on the programmes themselves. Watching them again on these superb discs, one is reminded that this is an almost flawless television series. At its heart, of course, is the astonishing performance by Joan Hickson, who captures the character with total conviction, and in a way not even approached by any of her predecessors or successors. I know that everyone says it, but she really IS Miss Marple. Because she is perfection, one sometimes forgets the brilliance of the supporting casts, which include such fine actors as Gwen Watford, Paul Eddington, Andrew Cruickshank. Ursula Howells, Joan Sims, Selina Cadell, Tom Wilkinson, Margaret Tyzack, Jean Simmons, Claire Bloom.On top of all this, the stories are all as faithful as possible to the original novels, which cannot be said of the later ITV series.So treat yourself! Television detective fiction doesn't get any better than this, and the blu-ray is a massive improvement on the DVDs.