It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

A great series. Warren Clarke is great as DS Andy Dalziel (literally DL);his character is tough, hard as nails, earthy, and brilliant. He is the show. Obviously a self-made detective who without an "education" has been promoted up the ranks to superintendent and somehow missed the refinements he might have been expected to pick up. He is paired with Colin Buchanan as DI Peter Pascoe, a well educated college man who I find a bit of a prat and a snob who believes he is better than his boss. He is paired with a wife, Susannah Corbett, who really dislikes Dalziel. To be honest, I hoped her character would be murdered at some point during the series as I find her totally obnoxious which might be a tribute to her acting. The stories are well written and you really have to be on form to get to the murderer before Dalziel does. It is a shame that at this time only the first three series are available on DVD.

I love detective shows and have done for as long as I can remember. Dalziel and Pascoe is no exception. I agree to some extent it is not quite as good as it was, with the introduction with the somewhat bland Kim Spicer, but on the whole it is well acted and well written, and while it has lost its edge a bit it is quite intense still. The photography and locations are excellent and the music is haunting(courtesy of genius Barrington Pheloung), while the writing is both humorous and intelligent and the stories and episode ideas gritty, edgy, complex and incredibly engrossing. The characters in general are likable and interesting, with Dalziel unorthodox but clever and quite funny sometimes and Pascoe loyal but sticks to the book. The acting is great, with Warren Clarke easily stealing the show, then again I don't know about you but Dalziel is for me the better character of the two but they're both great. Overall, great show. 9/10 Bethany Cox

I love Reginald Hill's novels upon which these shows were based and having read the lot, I have to agree with others in saying that the cast is less than accurate, though Warren Clarke and David Royle come closer in spirit to their book counterparts, if not physically. Colin Buchanan is too insubstantial to make Pascoe as strong as he is in the books and Susannah Corbett, while getting Ellie's smug self-satisfied know-it-allness down pat, looks and acts too hard - she fails to relay the bits of vulnerable sweetness of the book Ellie that makes it clear why Pascoe adores her. That being said, the stories remain fairly true to the novels, if far less bawdy and they retain much of the dark Northern humor that makes the books so enjoyable. With Clarke lacking the sheer bulk and crudity of the book Fat Andy, the scenes demonstrating his brilliance as a detective and perspicacity about the human condition are far less surprising than when they emerge in the novels. Even after you've read several of the stories, Hill makes Dalziel so obnoxious and primitive, you can visualize the scrapes on his knuckles from dragging them on the ground, when his genius and sensitivity lead to the truth - and that is what Dalziel is all about, getting to the truth - it still startles. However, judging the TV versions without considering the novel versions, the series is a cut above the standard fare in the UK, let alone the US, and is literate, funny, intriguing and thoroughly enjoyable. The acting, direction, pacing and scenery are completely credible and it is a treat to suspend reality to watch this - and the other UK coppers like Barnaby, Frost, Morse, et al.

This used to be a great TV series, until the 'reformers' got their PC focus group mits on it. Regular viewers will know what I'm talking about: when they changed the excellent original theme music (moody saxophone solo from the pen of Barrington Pheloung) and that accompanied a change in line-up. Out went the brilliantly under-played character of DS Edgar 'Wieldy' Wield (played by the excellent David Royle) and in came the 'I can't act for toffee and I've even got an annoyingly grating accent' Jennifer James in the role of WPC Kim Spicer and the inconsequential Wayne Perrey as DC Parvez Lateef. The show started out broodingly edgy and is now a faint shadow of its former self with the team now seeming more like the Scooby Gang than the hard-bitten original version. So come on BBC - less of the Kim Scrappy-Doo Spicer and let's get back to the original idea I used to love. The old show would get an 8 from me, but this incarnation struggles to get a 4.