Get this and you'll never have to think about buying another Lovejoy Dvd again! It has everything - episodes from 1986 to its end in 1994. Mammoth viewing - worked it out and it'll take you over 62 hours to watch it from start to finish. That's without sleep! Imagine 62 hours straight in Lovejoy-land

The classic BBC series comes to DVD with subtitles and in its original broadcast format for the very first time. Ian McShane stars as Lovejoy, the irresistible rogue with a keen eye for antiques. The divvie and part-time detective scours the murky salerooms, auction halls and stately homes of Britain, always on the lookout for a find. Whether it s a priceless old master or a pretty young lady, his love of beauty is sure to land this modern day Robin Hood in trouble wherever he goes!

73 EPISODES - 21 DISCS - 6 SERIES

Includes two feature length Christmas specials The Lost Colony and The Prague Sun.

This is a perfect way to see just how uneven the series was. Nostalgia makes you think it was perfect entertainment, or escapism, from beginning to end but it really wasn't. The first series was the show finding its way - by the 2nd, five years later it kicks on and in the few years in the early 90s we find what makes the show so special and still so appealing. It's the classic quartet, McShane, Logan, Jury & Sutton, fitting their roles like a glove that really makes it and one of the highlights of the whole show is the episode Eric of Arabia in the middle of these years. Just vintage Lovejoy.

But then again I'm a big fan of Chris Jury who played Eric. His comedy timing was second to none. If I had to pick just one favourite moment from the whole series it's the episode involving the cannon. Now Eric has been left alone to look after this valuable object for the night. Being Eric and being alone means instead he gets bladdered and the cannon appeals to have been stolen. When Lovejoy and Eric discover the 'theft' the next morning Lovejoy is furious. That split second when Eric computes in his brain whether he can wriggle out of it or not and then swiftly concludes the only way out of it is to do a runner is a moment I know too. Brilliant.

By the time Chris Jury left Logan had also departed and from that moment on it kind of limped towards its end. Sure there were some great moments but alot of the final 2 serieses were good but not great. The writers seemed to have run out of ideas and there were some really far-fetched storylines.

But before that, from the 2nd series onwards, there are moments of TV that are among the best that ever were produced in this country.

Sublime. Unforgettable.

Finally, a word on the astonishingly high calibre of guest stars that appeared throughout its run. I don't think there has been a British series with such a depth of talent. You have the really great, the immortals of British cinema and theatre like Sir John Gielgud to the Hothouse Flowers and Dennis Taylor. In-between a few to mention: Joanna Lumley, Renee Asherson (a personal favourite of mine who was the wife of Robert Donat and whose career stretched back to Carol Reed and the sublime The Way Ahead and Powell & Pressburger's The Small Back Room in the 1940s), Jean Kent, Bill Travers, Adrienne Corri (check her out in Ealing's bathed in the colour of Heaven 1950s The Feminine Touch), Minnie Driver, Amanda Burton, Michael Kitchen, Dougray Scott, Simon Ward, Jack Shepherd, Brian Blessed, the Warrens Clarke and Mitchell, Phil Daniels, William Franklyn, Martin Clunes and of course one of two more than a little well known Americans including the queen of Dallas Linda Gray and Ken Kercheval. Anyone want to add to the list of the many names I've forgotten e-mail me here (ihuppert5@aol.com).

So many stars that The Smiths could have used them for their iconic record sleeves and would only been able to use a fraction of them.