Mystery!: Campion (TV Series) Flowers for the Judge: Part 1 (1990) User Reviews

Flowers for the Judge: Part 1Flowers for the Judge: Part 1

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 23 May 2019]

It was a good job that Michael Barnabas, a friend of Campion bumps into him twice in short succession of this first part of a two part story.

The Barnabas family run a publishing house, their main asset is a rare unpublished manuscript by William Congreve. Paul Brande the inattentive husband of the enchanting Gina that Micheal adores from afar wants to display the manuscript.

Gina Brande calls on Campion as she fears that her husband is missing. When Paul Brande is found dead an inquest puts the spotlight on both Gina and Michael.

Director Michael Owen Morris nicely set the scene of a busy but stuffy publishing house. Peter Davison also projects Campion as someone both supportive of Micheal and Gina and yet suspicious of them.

Ahead of its time, but not in a good way

[martin-intercultural · 4/10 · 15 October 2017]

Coming on the heels of two back-to-back Campion stories in the show's second season which were set in stunning English countryside and exquisitely acted, this installment is by definition an anticlimax. The office setting is dark and claustrophobic. To make things worse, the direction is rushed; most of the female characters come across as caricatures; and Lugg the once-loyal sidekick inexplicably and abruptly goes from folksy to openly nasty and antagonistic. (A servant in the 1930s telling his blue-blooded master to "keep your shirt on"? Even Downton Abbey couldn't get away with that.) Overall, I felt like I was viewing something very "now" and millennial, filmed in 2017: Amidst the manic pace, I got all the male protagonists mixed up right off the bat, then watched partly in confusion, partly debating with myself if I should just skip to the next story.