When Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries came across my desk for review, I had no idea who she was, but Acorn Media are no slouch and release a lot of solid content from England and, in this case, Austraila. This particular release contains all thirteen episodes of Series 1 of the “whodunit” style mystery show that boasts several excellent characters, great scripts, and outstanding sets and costumes.
Miss Fryne (pronounced fry-knee) Fisher (Essie Davis) is a wealthy, astute woman who moves to Melbourne subtly in the first episode. She has some baggage — the disturbing disappearance and presumed death of her younger sister Janey who was kidnapped under the supervision of Fryne. The man responsible for the kidnapping — although he refuses to admit it — is behind bars, but will not divulge any information to Fryne. Similar to Mr. Monk’s over-arching storyline of the mystery of the murder of his wife in the popular show Monk, this story arc resurfaces regularly throughout the first series. For the most part however, Fryne and Detective Jack Robinson (Nathan Page) along with Constable Collins, Cec, Bert, and Dot, all become involved in solving various murder mysteries. The formula is timeless and works perfectly for an hour’s worth of entertainment at a time. Each episode begins with a brief tragedy involving a murder, the credits roll, and the hunt for the culprit(s) begins.
Viewers are invited to attempt to stay one step ahead of Fryne as she or one of her good friends go undercover, interview suspects, and seek out evidence. Once a resolution is ultimately provided, it is supported with flashback scenes that depict the crime in action while Fryne explains how she reached her conclusion. This is again is a classic formula and works really well so long as your mysteries are good and the acting is compelling, something Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries do indeed have going for them. She won’t unseat Hercule Poirot as my favorite on screen detective, but she’s certainly a lot easier on the eyes.
Compelling mysteries and excellent acting do a lot for this series, but the scripts never fail to insert at least a little bit of humor or jazz to keep things a little off-balance or fun. This adds to the robustness of the show and it’s view-ability. Set in the 1920s, expect some great jazz music too, and some risque behavior that is done tastefully and gives the series a different edge than Poirot or Ms. Marple episode would have. Miss Fisher’s costumes are another positive, as they offer a colorful variety that compliments her attitude and confidence very well. Honestly, this is one of those shows that does far more right than it does wrong; as a fan of the genre, it’s hard to find much at fault with it no matter what angle of approach I take.
The Blu-ray release handled by Acorn Media is very well done overall. From the provocative box art to the menu, this release exudes confidence. The menus are well animated and feature the show’s catchy jazz theme song. The menus are also pleasantly simple — Play All, Select Episode, and Subtitles On/Off are your options. Only English subtitles are available, which suits me fine. I liked how each episode is shown by name, along with a brief synopsis in addition to a Chapters breakdown. Only the third disc contains extra features, so it’s menu is slightly different. The technical presentation quality is great too. Expect a 1080i image with 2.0 DTS-HD MA audio, which is a lower standard than your typical Blu-ray release, but it gets the job done comfortably.
As for extra features, there are several, but all in SD. These include a behind the scenes look at the creation of the costumes in a feature called “The Look” that runs about nineteen minutes. You also have a short feature called “Meet the Creators” where the author of the novels and the two directors talk positively about the show for five minutes, followed by the author showing us the set of Fryne’s home for four minutes. A nearly ten minute feature of the cast members talking about the show and four other sub-five minute features related to the show are also here and worth a once-over if you enjoy the series.
To the summary…
