Rowan Atkinson is a fantastically funny comedian.  I've been a fan of his for years, and the thing that impresses me most is the fact that he is equally talented with verbal comedy and slapstick.  He has started in two cutting edge comedy TV shows (Black Adder and Mr. Bean,) both of which were at least cowritten by Ben Elton.  So I was very interesting in seeing the 1995 television show that reunited Elton and Atkinson, The Thin Blue Line.  Unfortunately, this show is not nearly as funny as their early efforts.

This show revolves around the trials and tribulations of Inspector Raymond Fowler (Rowan Atkinson,) the head of a Gasforth police station.  Fowler is a by the book "for Queen and country" officer whose patience is constantly tried by those around him.  Like Barney Miller, the station is filled with an assortment of odd and strange officers who are always messing up, but somehow manage to catch their man by the end of the show.

There is Constable Kevin Goody (James Dreyfus,) an effeminate idiot.  (Though he is not gay.  Dreyfus seems to have patterned his role after Mr. Humphries from Are You Being Served, creating a very over the top and flamboyant character, but they also make it know that he is interested in a female coworker.  Probably to make the show more politically correct.)  Goody is the type of character who misunderstands the simplest metaphors and gets every instruction wrong.  The front desk is manned by Fowler's live in girl friend for the past ten years Sgt. Patricia Dawkins (Serena Evans.)  She is competent at her duties, but constantly complains lack of physical and emotional attention in her relationship with Fowler, very reminiscent of Peg Bundy from Married With Children.

Rounding out the cast is Constable Maggie Habib (Mina Anwar) an Indian who is the only competent member of the squad, and the rarely seen or heard Constable Frank Gladstone, a Haitian who is easily confused and has such a small role that he seems to be a token more than anything else.

The antagonist of the show is the head detective, Inspector Derek Grim.  He is totally incompetent in his duties, but doesn't realize it.  He considers his work to be much more important than that of the plain clothes officers, and looks down his nose at them.  Of course, by the end of every episode he gets his comeuppance.

This show just doesn't work very well for me.  Even if you forget that the creative force behind this show had a lot of earlier successes and judge it on its own merits, this program comes across as a below average sitcom.  Almost all of the people in the show are caricatures, and what's worse is that they seem to be caricatures of other sitcom characters.  You have the dumb guy, the 'I don't get enough sex' female lead, the pompous antagonist, and the do it by the book leader who doesn't realize how silly he sounds.  There doesn't seem to be an original or creative aspect to the entire show.

There is also a lot of sexual innuendo, which quite honestly gets tiring after a while.  Lines like "My ass is on the line, and I don't want a cock-up!"  can be funny at first, but that same joke with slightly different words is told three times in the series.  This isn't a good show to watch with younger children around either, unless you want to field questions like: "What does 'I want you to give me a good Rogering!' mean?"

The show isn't all bad; there are some humorous moments sprinkled throughout the shows.  Rowan Atkinson give a few of his raving speeches that are always funny, but the writing in this show is much weaker than his other shows.  The insults that he slings about are much lamer than the piercingly cruel putdowns he used in Black Adder.  A typical insult here is: "Your head is only something that you keep your hat on, isn't it?"  It sounds like something you'd hear on a schoolyard playground.

Another fault I have is that the audio to this show contains one of the more obnoxious laugh tracks that I've heard.  Even the slightest jokes get huge laughs, so large that the sound engineers must have felt foolish mixing them in.

This set contains all 14 episodes that were:

Rag Week
The Queen's Birthday Present
Night Shift
Honey Trap
Fire and Terror
Kids Today
Yuletide Spirit
Court in the Act
Ism Ism Ism
Fly on the Wall
Alternative Culture
Come on You Blues
Road Rage
The Green-Eyed Monster

There is only a single audio track:  English 2.0.  It sounds clean and the dialog is easy to hear.  There isn't any hiss or distortion, and while not dynamic, it fits well with the show.

Video:

The full frame video is acceptable.  There is a good amount of heavy handed edge enhancement that is irritating.  Everything is outlined, and some of the time this distorts fine details.  There are some digital defects that crop up making the background details shimmer.  Venetian blinds look particularly awful, seeming to dance around on their own.  The colors are a little muted, but the picture is clear and there is a good amount of detail.  If they had omitted the edge enhancement this would have been a good looking DVD.

The Extras:

The third disc in the set contains the bonus material.  For an entire disc devoted to extras, there's not a lot here.  The first featurette is a 45-minute program, The Best of British:  Ben Elton.  This is a biography of the writer/performer filled with interviews with his friends and Ben himself.

The other video feature is Smillie's People:  Ben Elton a 13-minute excerpt from a British talk show where Ben talks about his stand-up comedy act, and briefly mentions his writing of The Thin Blue Line.

There are also text biographies of the cast.

Final Thoughts:

I had high hopes for this show, given the people involved with it, but they were not met.  While there are a few funny moments in each episode, most of the jokes are easily to see far in advance, and fall flat when they do arrive.  Fans of Rowan Atkinson will probably want to see this show for themselves anyway, but they should definitely rent it.