"Quirky" and "different" are adjectives that get trotted out quite often to describe television productions from the BBC, and for good reason: the British seem to be more willing than their U.S. cousins to try out different kinds of stories for television. Oliver's Travels is quirky with a capital Q, and its offbeat tone and self-confidence almost carry this mini-series through to the end. Almost, but not quite.

We're introduced to the titular Oliver (Alan Bates) as he's laid off from his job as a professor of comparative religion at a Welsh college; faced with early retirement, he decides on a whim to pay a visit to "Aristotle," the pseudonym for a renowned writer of crossword puzzles. But Aristotle turns out to be missing, and when Oliver enlists the aid of a police officer named Diane (Sinéad Cusack) to track him down, the two find themselves in the midst of an ever-growing criminal conspiracy... and caught up in an unexpected romance, as well.

The first two or three episodes of the five that make up Oliver's Travels are reasonably engaging, as we learn about the characters, discover their quirks (of which there are many, especially in the case of Oliver), and get to see some beautiful countryside as the protagonists gradually make their way north toward the Orkney Islands. The pacing seems slow, but since there's a hint of a developing mystery stitching the otherwise rather disconnected episodes together, it's watchable, and the occasional narration from Oliver adds a distinctive feel to the series as well.

By the end of the third episode, and definitely by the fourth episode, though, Oliver's Travels stalls badly. At this point, we've had enough of just getting to know Oliver and Diane; seeing them interact and get involved with each other had its charms but its appeal isn't enough to carry the series all the way to the finish. That leaves us with the mystery plot... but unfortunately, what looked promising at the beginning turns out to be very thin indeed. There's really no development of the plot at all; rather than developing, per se, it unfolds in a very linear manner as we find that Suspicious Incident A leads to Suspicious Person B who leads to Suspicious Incident C, and so on. Sure, in the fifth episode it all wraps up, but there's really not much of substance to make us care about how it all fits together.

Oliver's Travels is chock-full of references to popular culture, especially in the banter between Oliver and Diane; some of them are accessible to U.S. viewers, like the references to Hitchcock's North by Northwest, but most seem to be drawn from British pop culture. The result is that a lot of the dialogue and intended humor is likely to be rather opaque to U.S. viewers, thus sapping some of the series' effectiveness.

The DVD

Oliver's Travels is a two-DVD set, with each disc in a keepcase inside a glossy paperboard slipcover. The first three 50-minute episodes appear on Disc 1, and the remaining two on Disc 2.

Video

The ten-year-old print seems to have suffered some wear and tear as it waited around to be put onto DVD; the transfer here is watchable but certainly no more than barely adequate. It's extremely soft and grainy, and in general has a worn look to it, though at least the colors look reasonably natural. Oliver's Travels appears in what I believe is its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Audio

The soundtrack for Oliver's Travels is fairly straightforward, and doesn't offer much for me to talk about here. It gets the job done and has nothing particular wrong with it, other than sounding a bit flat at times.

Extras

The only special features are cast filmographies.

Final thoughts

Oliver's Travels has a original feel to it, and I suspect its quirky style will charm many viewers (particularly those who can appreciate more of its British cultural references). Part romance, part traveloque, part mystery, it did a good job of hooking me at the beginning of the series, but didn't succeed in sustaining that interest through all five parts. Rent it.