Sweet Angelica

Have always adored detective dramas/mystery series. This has been apparent from an early age, half my life even, when getting into Agatha Christie through Joan Hickson's Miss Marple and David Suchet's Poirot and into 'Inspector Morse'.

Whether it's the more complex ones like 'Inspector Morse' (and its prequel series 'Endeavour') and anything Agatha Christie. Whether it's the grittier ones like 'A Touch of Frost' (though that is balanced brilliantly with comedy too) and particularly 'Taggart'. And whether it's the light-hearted ones like 'Murder She Wrote'. 'Rosemary and Thyme' is an example of a light-hearted detective mystery series and always gives me a lot of pleasures and banishes the blues when watching. It is a shame that it didn't last longer because it deserved to.

"Sweet Angelica" is a good 'Rosemary and Thyme' episode but is not one of the best and a bit disappointing. It is let down by the murderer being obvious too early and other episodes have much better ways of deducing "who done it" and how the conclusion was come to, this one was far too simplistic.

Also found the conclusion somewhat rushed and unsurprising, due to everything being prematurely obvious. There are a lot of characters here and keeping up with them and the name dropping was not always easy.

However, there are many great things.

Visually, "Sweet Angelica" looks wonderful, beautifully photographed, vibrant in colour and as always with the show with a stunning setting, have always been envious of the gardens seen on the show. The music has a lot of charm with a main theme tune that is soothingly folksy that matches the whimsy of the setting appropriately.

The writing is engaging and suitably light-hearted without being frothy. Some of the dialogue for Laura and especially Rosemary is very funny. The story is suitably twisty generally without being convoluted, and is entertaining and with a relaxing vibe without being simplistic.

Similarly the characters engage, with Rosemary and Laura already being interesting and distinct in personality, and the chemistry between the two sparkles. Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris are simply great, individually and as a sparkling double act, love Kendal's fire and feistiness and Ferris' more restrained and thoughtful approach. The supporting cast are hard to find fault with too, James Weber Brown in particular adds a lot.

On the whole, good episode but not one of my favourites. 7/10 Bethany Cox

While trying to uncover the source of a disease that has crept up in the lawn of a special language college, Rosemary and Laura are shocked when they find the body of Felix, the college's handyman, at the side of the road. When another student, Angelica, is found dead on the college grounds, having been pushed to her death and with a ceremonial knife in her possession. The two gardeners discover that the second victim was highly religious and knew something about the killer...

Excellent episode that has plenty of suspects, incidents and drama to keep you glued. This particular episode is quite tight, keeps the clues coming and intrigue high.

Once again, FELICITY KENDAL and PAM FERRIS are the gardeners you better not hire unless you want to find a corpse hidden beneath the sod or in the attic. Everywhere they go, they seem to turn up nothing but troublesome murders, just like Jessica Walters on MURDER, SHE WROTE.

This particular episode gets a lift from the performance of JAMES WEBER-BROWN who stands out in the supporting cast. Of course, in all of these outings the British cast does a superb job on the odd collection of characters one can suspect of murder.

Keeping track of all the characters is something you have to do for these sort of mysteries and the name dropping gets pretty intense at times. Still, it's always a fun show to watch.

Rosemary and Laura are hired by an exclusive school, to sort their lawns out, no sooner are they there, the handyman, Felix is killed. Soon after a polish student, named Angelica is killed, could it be that she had killed Felix, then took her own life?

It's nice, easy viewing once again, with the green fingered amateur sleuths on hand to solve a double murder. The pair definitely come across as a couple of smarty pants, Laura in the shop definitely started interfering, retail wonders do not like thieves, she wanted to let her go by the looks of it.

Every time I watch it, I firmly buy into the pair being gardeners, they certainly carry it off.

A nice bit of drama at the end of this one, overall, it's an enjoyable mystery. Good characters, the boss was amusing, only worried about the reputation of the school and himself.

I have to say, but it wasn't particularly difficult to work out the identity of the killer, or the motive, but the storyline itself was a good one, with a few decent red herrings thrown in.

7/10.