11.1 Better The Devil You Know

[joshmel]

Sept 30, 2017 10:57:01 GMT westldner said:

Aug 14, 2017 9:16:29 GMT jno said:

I must say, I did like the advert for 'Brand New Minder' when it came out:

More like Brand New London, Same Old Minder. It's kind of not funny actually if I saw this and then watched the episode. I would of felt mislead. Was there any better way to advertise the series? A bit of a shame really.

Not seen the remake It looks like two blokes of about similar age, one of the great things about the original was that mix of youth and experience between the two main characters

[bigaitch]

I thought the series was poor. I would go as far to say a total insult to what was a legendary series played by fantastic actors. This was not even a pale imitation, but a poor show given the same name with a few tenuous links.

[AlanH]

Series 11 (1) - Episode 1 - 'Better the Devil You Know'

I can't deny that I went into this series more out of curiosity than out of any belief that it would really be anything other than awful, so perhaps this review should be read from that perspective - low expectations exceeded.

First impressions weren't particularly good, I have to say, with a poor rendition of the famous Kenny + Dennis Waterman theme and a title sequence that felt more inspired by Guy Ritchie films than Minder itself. We're introduced then to the central characters - Shane Richie and Lex Shrapnel and straight away I found myself warming to one and not the other. Shrapnel instantly appeals as a tough guy with a heart and conscience (even if we later learn that he's a bit of a reformed character after a spell inside) and he proves to be a decent stand-in for Waterman/Terry McCann.

Shane Richie, however, is a problem. He lacks the subtlety of George Cole, which means that the comedy is delivered without nuance, and the comparisons to Cole here are unavoidable. Swainy mentioned earlier in this thread that Timothy Spall would have been ideal and I find myself in complete agreement. It needed someone like Spall, who could do the drama and also be cowardly and devious in a sort of endearing way as Cole had done so marvellously. I guess Richie's star was high at the time and the project needed his name attached to bring in the mula, but bluntly he's not a great actor even if his heart was clearly in the right place in the making of this series. 

That's something that does come across nicely. It feels like it's trying to be Minder even if it doesn't fully achieve it. As others have mentioned in the thread, it probably could have done with a framed photo of Arthur Daley in pride of place on Archie's desk and/or a mention of him rather than the rather vague and indirect tribute we got in the final scene of the episode.

One thing I did think was way out of kilter compared with Minder of old was that by the end of the episode Jamie has an apartment that most people could only dream of - even allowing for the deafening roar of aircraft taking off (from I presume London City Airport). Terry's digs were always spartan and modest - and a touch grimy. If Jamie has a posh apartment there's hardly the 'master and servant' feeling that you got with Arthur and Terry, where Terry would always be feeling hard done by by Arthur, and Arthur would be working out how to cash in without sharing the loot with Terry any more than he had to. Of course, these new characters are not Arthur and Terry, but to me that relationship is at the heart of Minder.

I thought the cast was good and I was surprised to see Josette Simon in effectively the Chisholm role. I hope we see her become more obsessed with Daley over the course of the series but I suspect that won't be an angle replicated from the original. Also very nice to see Paul Brooke among the cast - he used to pop up in loads of stuff I liked back in the 70s and 80s like The History Man, Blott on the Landscape and Bird of Prey - and of course a 'proper' Minder. This was supposedly one of his final roles before he retired - seems to still be around today, too. The only notably weak actor was John Henshaw as the crooked councillor - murmurring his lines and generally not being particularly convincing.

Overall, the disappointment with Shane Richie aside, it's a decent opener but without George Cole it's a very different Minder. 

Finally, the thing I really didn't like was the intrusive background music that never seemed to stop...

[simon316]

Jul 18, 2015 10:25:10 GMT yoyopickles said:

Perhaps it may have helped if Arthur had been mentioned, or little touches like a picture of Arthur on the wall of Archie's lock up and so on, also if it was made clear when we first meet Petra, she is Dave's daughter.

Never understood why any series, when a key character has left, for whatever reason, they are not mentioned ever and for lacks autheniticity.  I agree with both points - quite right

[simon316]

I thought this series started well. Another post says the first episode itself starts strongly and the first episode was reasonable - best I can say. But the series dropped like a stone thereafter.
So many good ideas in theory - even the actors were well cast but if this was a jigsaw it would be missing half the pieces...

[manta]

I'm sorry but I thought this was BAD with a capital B, a capital A and a capital D. I didn't find any of the characters believable from the main ones to the baddies, plod and bent councillor - okay maybe Archie's lawyer was believable. Bent councillor in league with criminals leaning on an attractive single mum running a pub on her own so they can build a new development - not very original for 2009, is it? And even Fuller's London Pride doesn't look like that.

The plot and script was very weak - who would meet up in what's left of Battersea Power Station? How would plod suddenly have believed Archie? Speaking of which - grassing was well out of order, even anonymous phone calls were frowned upon - and here we have a joint operation with plod to catch the bad guys - come on!

I smiled when Heavy #1 thumps Heavy #2 instead of Jamie early on and the big loud plane passing the flat (although that hardly makes sense geographically - planes like that can't take off from London City) but that was it. Yes, of course I have the Arthur/Terry/Ray version buzzing around in my head but given this was the intro, and they knew what they were trying to emulate, they should have worked much harder.

There are much better non-Minder things out there to watch.

Rubbish.

[ontheslate]

I’ve not really bothered with this series, and only saw bits and pieces ,never a fan of Shane Richie, remember when it first came out and a friend of mine who was a big Minder fan basically said all the bad points that have already been mentioned. With what I had saw it was trying to hard and failed Richie wasn’t the right actor in my opinion and the episode felt to contrived where as Terry and Ray years had a more natural feel to them.

[jno]

Jan 15, 2024 11:24:31 GMT manta said:

I'm sorry but I thought this was BAD with a capital B, a capital A and a capital D. I didn't find any of the characters believable from the main ones to the baddies, plod and bent councillor - okay maybe Archie's lawyer was believable. Bent councillor in league with criminals leaning on an attractive single mum running a pub on her own so they can build a new development - not very original for 2009, is it? And even Fuller's London Pride doesn't look like that.

The plot and script was very weak - who would meet up in what's left of Battersea Power Station? How would plod suddenly have believed Archie? Speaking of which - grassing was well out of order, even anonymous phone calls were frowned upon - and here we have a joint operation with plod to catch the bad guys - come on!

I smiled when Heavy #1 thumps Heavy #2 instead of Jamie early on and the big loud plane passing the flat (although that hardly makes sense geographically - planes like that can't take off from London City) but that was it. Yes, of course I have the Arthur/Terry/Ray version buzzing around in my head but given this was the intro, and they knew what they were trying to emulate, they should have worked much harder.

There are much better non-Minder things out there to watch.

Rubbish.

The bad news is the next one 11.2 is probably the worst of the bunch.

[manta]

Jan 15, 2024 12:28:48 GMT jno said:

The bad news is the next one 11.2 is probably the worst of the bunch.

That's it jno, keep cheering me up .