Acorn Media's release of Series 1 (1994) offers ten episodes on three single-sided DVDs with a few minor extras, notably an extended interview with co-star Maggie Steed.

The general awkwardness of the show is apparent in the premise-establishing first episode. D.I. Henry Crabbe (Griffiths) is eager to retire from the force, especially after being wounded just seven weeks prior to his last day on duty, shot in the leg by a suspect he'd been trying to nail for years. Crabbe and his wife, Margaret (Stead), plan to open Pie in the Sky, a small but cozy restaurant catering to those looking for simple meals made with fine, carefully-selected ingredients - including fresh eggs from a backyard henhouse - a restaurant specializing in that old English mainstay, steak and kidney pie. (Not to be confused with steak and kidney pudding, the favorite dish of Rumpole of the Bailey.)

However, Assistant Chief Constable Freddie Fisher (Malcolm Sinclair), who has built an entire career on Crabbe's successes, is loathe seeing him retire from the force, and so entraps him in a trumped-up bribery scandal. With criminal charges hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles, Crabbe has little choice but to drop his ladle and chef's hat whenever called upon by Fisher to run down some missing person or investigate a suspicious death.

Created by Andrew Payne (Minder, Midsomer Murders), Pie in the Sky is rather bland and as a mystery series not very interesting overall. The main problem seems to be the character of Crabbe and how Richard Griffiths, a fine actor, tends to amplify its weaknesses. Crabbe loves good food (as exemplified by Griffith's Oliver Hardy-sized proportions) but is also a real snob, despite an effort on the writers to avoid that by making steak and kidney pie and its Common Man appeal the backbone of Crabbe's restaurant. (And, in the first episode, he declines to hire a snobbish chef who refuses to make such "peasant" food.) Yet Crabbe pooh-poohs his wife's fondness for prawn cocktail-flavored potato chips, detests hotel restaurant food, complains about convenience store baked goods, the food they sell on trains, many of his own customers - you name it.

Indeed, he pretty much bellyaches about everything, though he saves his most biting insults for his former and incompetent bosses who keep yanking him away from his beloved kitchen at a moment's notice. When called to a case Crabbe has the intolerant attitude of a man called away from the table by a telephone solicitor just as he was sitting down to Christmas dinner.

Unfortunately, the mystery part of the series plays the same way, like the writers and producers really wanted to do a show about a middle-aged man who opens a restaurant, but that the BBC insisted the program also be a mystery so they could sell it to the American market.

Griffiths, best known for his Tony-winning performance in the play and movie versions of The History Boys and as Vernon Dursley in the "Harry Potter" films, further inhibits viewers from warming up to the character. Griffiths is an excellent actor, but arguably miscast. Even though the character is supposed to be gentle and kind-hearted, beady-eyed Griffiths's petulant, self-involved interpretation of the character dominates.

Over the course of the set's 10 episodes the show does slowly get better, though the mystery angle is always much less interesting than the daily dramas at the restaurant. In real-life a converted florist shop in Hemel Hempstead was used for filming; it's now a restaurant also called Pie in the Sky.

Video & Audio

The transfers aren't any less bland than the show. Looking like it was shot in Super 16 with postproduction done on tape, Pie in the Sky - Series 1 is on the soft side with tepid color, contrast, and definition. The full-frame episodes, running about 48 3/4 minutes each, as previously stated are spread across three single-sided, dual-layered discs. SDH English subtitles are included. The Dolby Stereo audio is about average for British television of its era.

Extra Features

The third disc includes an 18-minute interview with Maggie Steed in 16:9 format and filmed in 2004. That's about it, save a few production notes and text Richard Griffiths biography.

Parting Thoughts

Though somewhat disjointed and disappointing, Pie in the Sky has just barely enough good things going for it to make it watchable for undemanding mystery fans, and clearly many viewers like it a lot more than I did. Rent It.

Film historian Stuart Galbraith IV's latest book, Japanese Cinema, is due in stores this June, and on sale now.