Season 37 - The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2007)
What most of us turn to Masterpiece for is a good old fashioned period drama. Yes, there have been modern shows here and there, and many quite exceptional, but for most of us it's all about the period drama. Well, watching The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard now it feels like a period drama. Looking back on a simpler time in politics before Trump and Brexit it feels so long ago that it's a different era. Plus with the cast, Steven Mackintish, Jodhi May, Janet McTeer, Carey Mulligan, Geraldine James, Tom Mison, Siobhan Finneran, and Harry Hadden-Paton to name a few, it is like the best of the best from British period dramas are represented here. Then factor in the Downton-esque music by John Lunn playing over several characters from Downton Abbey, and well, it might be modern but it feels like Masterpiece to me. Though it's an odd little miniseries, written by Sally Wainwright who has gone on to create the procedurals Scott and Bailey and Happy Valley, the feel good Last Tango in Halifax, and the sensational period lesbian romp Gentleman Jack, The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard never really finds it's feet and ends on an abrupt note, and that note was only on the DVD at that. Ros Pritchard is a woman with no political experience who ends up Prime Minister by just telling it like it is and vowing to never lie. While I adore Jane Horrocks, she doesn't have the heft needed for the role and is outclassed by everyone around her. But more importantly, I couldn't figure out the message of the miniseries. What was it trying to say? It is oddly pro-Brexit before Brexit happened with a bizarre streak of British exceptionalism. Also Ros's Purple party is almost all women, is this a commentary on women in traditional male roles and how they succeed or fail based on how much of the traditional female roles they're willing to give up, like motherhood. Also, while this was obviously written about a fake election it seems prophetic. I mean, look what we've just lived through here in the States! A person entirely ignorant of government being elected to the highest position in the land. But in reality there were tons and tons of deaths instead of everyone banding together and riding a bus. So yeah... it now cuts a little too close to the bone... The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard just doesn't understand the implications of what it's attempting and failing to say.
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