Wrong. Rumpole was shot on 2" quad (later 1") videotape with 16mm film sequences telecined in. The last couple of seasons were done entirely on VT.
For the record, Thames hardly ever used 35mm for TV production. The only example I can think of is the 1991 version of Van Der Valk. Everything...
FWIW, the video quality on the Who blus is really all over the place due to the archival nature of the series (Seasons 2 and 8 are a real mess) and production methods used at the time.