John Hannah may a good actor, but he was no Rebus. Which is a shame, because the Hannah series had longer episodes that let some of Rankin's genius through. And they had Gerald Morris Cafferty, Rebus' nemesis, a running feature in the books. But they got Rebus wrong and Clarke as well.Word was that Rankin was not happy with Hannah, so when the series resumed, Ken Stott got the nod, and he is a much better Rebus. The stories are streamlined, which stinks, but any time spent with Stott is time well spent, as he nails Rebus' craftiness, as well as his emotional tension, perfectly. And the Stott episodes more accurately portray Rebus' partnership with Siobhan Clarke (Claire Price), both in its inception and then as it grows over time.This should be addicting for fans of Ian Rankin's books, which are among the best in modern police fiction.

/refers to all episodes/As I am fond of British (and Scandinavian) detective dramas, I try to watch them as many as possible - preferably in sequence. Although recent decades have seen the bloom of series without single cased based episodes, it is sometimes nice to "look back" as well - as here in Rebus. It is a bit odd that this series is divided into 2 - the episodes starring John Hannah and those with Ken Scott as DI John Rebus; both the approach and the depiction of Rebus are different, and now, after watching all series, I would say that I find Scott's performance more pleasing - he is rougher and his views and behaviour patterns include giggling moments, plus the episodes are shorter. Although not all episodes are equally interesting and sustained - in some cases I could guess too early who the wrongdoer was - the series in general is another nice example of respective British talent, with the beautiful city of Edinburgh within a supporting cast.As a whole, 8 points from me - 7.5 for Hannah's Rebus and 8.5 for Scott's.

It's very interesting what can be done in about one hour. I just watched an episode and I could relate completely with Rebus. I don't understand why the other reviews are so average. I taped (DVD-d) a lot of episodes and I watch them over and over. The music is also very good. And Siobhan is a very nice lady. Sometimes I feel sorry for her, with Rebus as a colleague, but in the end she always takes his side. When this is written in awful English, sorry, but the Rebus episode I just saw made such an impact I rushed to register on IMDb to let the world know I think Rebus and Siobhan are the best! Rebus doesn't seem to have any personal life, he can be compared to Jack Frost, I would like to see them as a team, maybe a writer can think of an episode with the two of them? Be creative!

Although Ken Stott is a good if sanitized Rebus, the show doesn't really take off. Format might be an issue here as 70 minutes is a fairly short period to tell a complex story. On the other hand, other shows like Blue Murder manage it. My main misgivings about the show are that the episodes have nothing to do whatsoever with the books of the same titles and that the story telling is linear. A whodunnit is which the who and usually even the why is obvious after 15 minutes is pretty pointless. There are absolutely no surprises, no twists in the story telling: not to put too fine a point on it, the stories are plainly boring. That's a pity because you get some really find performances of the cast. Particularly the actresses who play Siobhan Clarke and Gill Templer are really doing a splendid job in bringing those characters to life. Some changes to Rebus I just don't understand. In the books we learn that he drives a Saab. Why change that to a Mercedes (of all cars. A symbol of authority and power if I ever saw one.)? Rebus in the books is a very dark character which is reflected by the nature of his relationships. Here, he is a dark brooding womanizer. In the TV series he is more grumpy than violent. An interesting thing is that Cafferty keeps calling FRebus "Strawman", apparently because he was once called that in a court case. However, that is taken from Eliot's "The Hollow Men" and refers to Rebus not having any purpose in life beyonmd his job (and the point is driven home brutally in the last scene of Exit Music).