Season 26 - A Royal Scandal (1996-1997)
I am delighted that this gem of a show is available on DVD, albeit as an extra on the DVD release of the far inferior The Queen's Sister, which ironically aired on a rival station to PBS, BBC America. This production in just an hour gives an insightful and oftentimes hilarious look into the marriage of George IV, AKA Prinny, and Caroline of Brunswick. To say theirs was not a love match would be understating it. But what is amazing about this little glimpse into royal life during the Regency Era is that all the vitriol spewed back and forth showing them as nothing more than children was taken from what they actually said. They seriously said this!?! I'm horrified to think of what Prinny on Twitter would be like. Note to self, I want to see the Prince Regent on Twitter as a parody account. Seriously, why isn't this a thing!?! All I had remembered of A Royal Scandal was the interesting framing device of a narrator and the brilliance of Richard E. Grant as Prinny and Susan Lynch as Caroline evilly glaring at each other while on a very nice black and white tiled floor. Obviously hinting at the combative chess-like nature of their marriage. So for your edification and mine I rewatched it. I was blown away by who they got as the supporting cast! And I didn't even remember there was a supporting cast! Michael Kitchen, Frances Barber, Denis Lawson, Oliver Ford Davies, and Ian Freakin' Richardson as the pitch perfect narrator! This cast was more than one could hope for, how did I forget them!?! The subtlety of Michael Kitchen facing the opprobrium of Prinny's rage and just replying that he was sent to set up a marriage not weigh in on the suitability of the match. Perfection! Oh, and my favorite scene by far is when Caroline arrives in England and is greeted by her husband's mistress, Lady Jersey! There's a real repressed British cat fight about Caroline's dress and in particular her hat. Caroline wins on the point of her hat! She LOVES that hat! It has been said of Lady Jersey that she possessed "a heady mix of charm, beauty, and sarcasm" and I really can't think of a better way to describe this little glimpse at royal life, come for the charming sarcasm!
Sometimes there is an adaptation so perfect that you don't know which came first for you, reading the book or watching the adaptation. This is how it is for me with The Moonstone, the two are forever intertwined and my story is a mystery even to myself. On the shelves of our library cum television room we had the complete set of the Franklin Library's Masterpieces of Mystery, The Moonstone being one of the volumes, with it's faux red leather binding and colorfully garish illustration on the cover. As an aside, seeing as The Moonstone laid the groundwork for the entire detective genre if the Franklin Library hadn't included it it would have been a major oversight. Now the mystery becomes did I pick up that volume prior to one Sunday night when I was ensconced in my corner of the couch and watched a few minutes of The Moonstone with my mother or not? I remember sitting there so clearly, the warm light, the copy of The Moonstone on the shelf near my right shoulder. I'm pretty sure I didn't watch more than a few minutes of the movie because I was all about reading the book before watching the adaptation. At that time it was a strict rule in my life. But did I bend the rules? Later events might indicate I did... Maybe I'll claim that I was sleepwalking like Franklin Blake? Eventually I did pick up The Moonstone to read and the entire time I kept thinking, damn, have I read this before? I swear I've read this before... Or had I just watched the movie? This is compounded by the fact that when reading the book the character of the old house steward Gabriel Betteredge came into my mind as the incomparable Peter Vaughn. He was just there, in my head, and I accepted it as fact. Fast forward to me watching or perhaps re-watching the film and Peter Vaughn IS in it as Betteredge. Thinking of this which came first the chicken or the egg mystery just does my head it. But one thing is confirmed no matter what order events happened in, this is the best adaptation of The Moonstone you could hope to find. It's literally my headcanon. 
Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy by Timothy Zahn
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells
Alias Space and Other Stories by Kelly Robson
Smithy by Amanda Desiree
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
An Earl, The Girl, and A Toddler by Vanessa Riley
The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
One night back in undergrad two of my friends and I decided to go rent a movie. Remember video stores? Full of all those wonderful films yet somehow kind of grubby. We were walking from Rivendell (no really, my friend Matt lived in a big purple housing co-op named Rivendell) to the local video store a few blocks away. On the way there we found over $20 in cash on the ground that some drunk college student had obviously dropped. So dinner and a movie was on said drunk college student who was probably pissed in more ways than one when they found out. Four Star Video was known for it's rather indie pics. You could find basically anything there that was offbeat. After much toing and froing we decided on the Ethan Hawke/Kyle MacLachlan version of Hamlet and The Turn of the Screw, because Colin Firth. I'm not sure how far we got into Hamlet before it was ejected, but could have been twenty minutes could have been a thousand years. And that, my friends, is why you always rent two movies when you go out in case one is an absolute stinking pile of shit. Well, we didn't fair that well with The Turn of the Screw either. None of us had actually read the story, so we were all unprepared for the whole evil wins ending. What's more, and in fact more to the point of why it failed to meet our expectations is that Colin Firth was in the first five minutes and then never seen again. That's false advertising that is putting his name first! And yes, after this debacle my friends said I should pay them for having to sit through videos dubbed my choices... but they were free! And more importantly we did put it to a vote! But looking back, while The Turn of the Screw isn't my favorite ghost story out there this is the best direct adaptation there is, because at least they didn't throw in a weird insane asylum/murder conviction plotline like the 2009 version with Michelle Dockery did. So if you're looking for a faithful adaptation of The Turn of the Screw you can't go wrong with Jodhi May and Pam Ferris who are superb actors, but if you're looking for the best adaptation out there check out The Haunting of Bly Manor instead. 
Jane Austen Investigates: The Abbey Mystery by Julia Golding
The Social Graces by Renee Rosen
The Unfit Heiress by Audrey Clare Farley
World Travel by Anthony Bourdain
Cook, Eat, Repeat by Nigella Lawson
There are some miniseries that aired on Masterpiece that have never been on DVD or streaming stateside and this royally pisses me off. There are so many great shows that once you see them all you're left with is your memory. And I know, I know, this is how things used to be. You'd see a movie in the theatre or watch a show and until the advent of home recording devices in the eighties this was just how you lived, off your memories. The two shows I most wish to see again are oddly both based on Kingsley Amis novels, Lucky Jim and Take a Girl Like You. Take a Girl Like You aired during a headlong rush of chaos in my life that resulted in me eventually take some time off from school. This is a roundabout way of saying I caught a little bit of it when it first aired, really liked what I saw, but was unable to watch the whole thing until it aired again a few years later. But at least that time I was prepared with a shiny new VHS tape to record it on! I really should bust out those tapes. I think I even have the Colin Firth miniseries of Nostromo... And yes, I'm weird in that I have a VHS actually hooked up to a TV so watching it wouldn't be a problem... Now this is all I'm going to be thinking about for days! Oh, I think I have Lucky Jim too! The real reason Take a Girl Like You appealed to me was the period setting and Emma Chambers was in it. Emma Chambers, who is sadly no longer with us, is an international treasure for her portrayal of Alice Tinker on The Vicar of Dibley. Emma only had twelve credits to her name, but the effervescent if slightly dim Alice and her lovely turn as Hugh Grant's sister in Notting Hill made her an actress never to be forgotten. Of course these were very up characters, very verging on hyper, so the depressing drunk who is more than a little bit of a Nosey Parker she plays in Take a Girl Like You is a surprising and delightful change. My mom and dad would say a depressing change, but I liked seeing her range. I also happened to notice that Rupert Graves was in this, but this was still during the time I hadn't warmed up to him. It was the one two punch of V for Vendetta and Sherlock that did that for me. But anyway, once I saw the whole thing, Take a Girl Like You is an interesting look at a very specific time in England and the sexual politics of dating. I just wish I didn't feel like it dated me to say how much I liked it when it aired over a decade ago!
Every once in awhile you stumble on a miniseries that gives you a new perspective on an actor you love, like Hugh Bonneville's villainous turn in Daniel Deronda which I talked about last week. And every once in awhile you stumble on a miniseries where you fall in love with an actor previously unknown to you. But the rarest of the rare is when both these events happen within the same miniseries, and that's what happened when I first watched The Way We Live Now. Let's tackle a returning favorite first, David Suchet. David Suchet plays the indomitable Augustus Melmotte, a wealthy foreigner taking in interest in British Rail. Everybody knows Suchet as Poirot. I mean it's not just a role, he IS Poirot and I will fight anyone who disagrees. If you've watched any of the interviews or documentaries with him that often air on PBS it's amazing how unlike Poirot he is. He becomes the character created by Agatha Christie. Which is why his completely submerging himself into the roll of Melmotte shouldn't be a surprise, but it is. I mean I even saw him in The Importance of Being Earnest as Lady Bracknell and he was her! But I'd never searched out films or shows with him starring other than Poirot so The Way We Live Now opened my eyes to his range, his professionalism, and how I definitely need more of him in my life, hence my going to see The Importance of Being Earnest. And speaking of someone welcome in my life at ANY time, let's talk Matthew Macfadyen. Matthew Macfadyen plays Sir Felix Carbury, who is wooing Augustus Melmotte's daughter in a vain attempt to right his family's financial problems. Nowadays everyone knows Matthew as Mr. Darcy opposite Keira Knightly. Keep in mind that film was four years away from happening when I first watched The Way We Live Now. So I hunted up everything I could that Matthew starred in, which wasn't much at the time! Even Spooks was a year away! But thankfully there was Enigma, Murder Rooms, Wuthering Heights, the one with him having no lines, and maybe it's best to skip Maybe Baby. I was enamored of this English John Cusack as my friend Jess dubbed him. To this day I will watch him in anything! Though there are a few that I wish I could forget. Looking at you Any Human Heart!
When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain
Bitterroot Lake by Alicia Beckman
The House of Hidden Secrets by C.E. Rose
The Unkindness of Ravens by M.E. Hilliard
The Thin Place by C.D. Major
The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky
Malice by Heather Walter
On one level Daniel Deronda is all about the love triangle where there girl I was rooting for gets the guy despite not having the killer wardrobe the other girl does. I mean it, the clothes are top notch! On another level it's about making fun of Jamie Bamber's facial hair. I mean seriously, I can NOT look at him as Hans and not burst out laughing. I just wonder what would have become of Battlestar Galactica had he taken this look with him to that show later the same year. OK, now I can't stop laughing again. I should also stop googling images of him as Hans because this isn't helping things. At all. OK, it's making me happy, so perhaps I should continue. If you want to have a good laugh google "Daniel Deronda Jamie Bamber" and have yourself a gander and a giggle. Curtailing my mirth, most importantly this miniseries is about the acting range of Hugh Bonneville. His turn as Henleigh Grandcourt is nothing short of pure villainy. The first time I watched it I was enraptured by Hugh Bonneville, and yes, I feel obliged to use his full name in this review to not confuse him with the other Hugh in this adaptation, Hugh Dancy, who is also perfectly cast if you were wondering. Hugh Bonneville in recent years has cemented his teddy bear persona with his portrayal of Robert Crawley on Downton Abbey. He's a bit befuddled, but he gets there in the end and is the best dad a girl could hope for. He doubled down on this by helming the Paddington Bear franchise. Prior to Daniel Deronda he was also the teddy bear, the devoted husband in The Cazalets, the oblivious Mr. Rushworth in the version of Mansfield Park I fail to acknowledge, and of course most notably, Bernie, the bumbling friend of Hugh Grant, dammit another HUGH has snuck into this review, in Notting Hill. So Hugh Bonneville is almost always playing to his strengths here, which makes Daniel Deronda so amazing. He is an out and out brute and you don't for one second deny that this is who he is! He became the character and he is the driving force of this miniseries. This isn't Hugh Bonneville anymore, this is Grandcourt! A villain to watch out for and an actor to admire.
The original adaptation of The Forsyte Saga is what birthed Masterpiece Theatre. Without that series we wouldn't be celebrating fifty years of British television right now. Though aside from Michael York and Susan Hampshire the original series lacks name recognition. That's where this version really knocked it out of the park; Damian Lewis, Gina McKee, Rupert Graves, Ioan Gruffudd, Corin Redgrave, Barbara Flynn, Amanda Root, and Ben Miles! You have freakin' Horatio Hornblower in it! Plus so many up and coming actors like Julian Ovenden who should have SO married Sam on Foyle's War. I mean seriously, her husband is a loser and she deserved to officially be Foyle's daughter! I will forever be pissed by this until Anthony Horowitz rewrites the last few seasons. He can take time out from being a big time author to do this! He can multitask I'm sure of it. This miniseries set up to be lush while the original was the last series to be fully filmed in black and white. It's like they had something to prove and prove it they did. One of my favorite touches is the dress that Irene Forsyte is wearing on the cover of the DVD set (see above.) This dress is an exact replica of the dress from John Singer Sargent's painting Madame X, except in red. Little touches like this are seen throughout the series. Especially in the house Robin Hill. A fictional house my dad loves so much he's willing to move into it immediately. But what this series is most known for is how gut-wrenching it is. You will be non-stop crying through the entire series. Therefore it takes fortitude to watch it. Being prepared doesn't help. But I think this emotional release is why I love it so much, and in particular the second series. When Young Jolyon Forsyte played by Rupert Graves lies dying and his daughter June played by Gillian Kearney is copiously weeping that she cannot live without him, I felt it so deep in my bones that I think I might have had a little nervous breakdown that only giving my dad a big hug could fix. That night I couldn't stop crying this series forever took up a little corner of my soul and I wouldn't change it for the world. 
The Best Thing You Can Steal by Simon R. Green 
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson
House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
Litany of Dreams by Ari Marmell
Titan Song by Dan Stout 
The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon
Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeaon Chapman
Pride an Premeditation by Tirzah Price
Doctor Aphra by Sarah Kuhn
There are moments in your life that your remember as perfect. They are rare. Those moments you can look back on and think, yes, that was when everything was right in the world. That was it. For me one of those moments was spending Sunday nights with my cat watching He Knew He Was Right. This miniseries was a perfect blend of romance and humor. Yes, the story of Louis and Emily and the disintegration of their marriage is tragic but Bill Nighy playing the rakish wedge pushing them apart with his asides to the camera is beyond delicious. Then there's the budding romance between Dorothy and Brooke, an oh so young Matthew Goode, doomed due to Dorothy's aunt, a brilliant turn by the ever wonderful Anna Massey. Of course I'm leaving the best for last, and that's the love triangle between the local vicar and two sisters. Arabella and Camilla French, Fenella Woolgar and Claudie Blakley respectively, both set their caps at Mr. Gibson, played by David Tennant. There is manipulation, illness, castigation, and finally, after an incident with a knife, grudging acceptance. I can not tell you how much I enjoy this plotline. I can give you an inkling though in the fact that a few years back now David Tennant was coming to Madison as part of the Wizard World Conventions. Remember conventions? Large rooms full of noisy people spending too much money they couldn't afford to spend but all worshiping the same geeky gods you do? Yeah... There's a part of me that doesn't miss those at all and another part that longs to be able to go to one. Booths full of geeky t-shirts and random people dressed up as Doctor Who or Deadpool might be dead and gone. Getting back on track, so David Tennant, Madison, me having a VIP ticket. First there was the quick photoshoot where they move you through as fast as they can, here's you and David, click, next. Later there would be the panel where I had a reserved seat up front and people would ask questions David has had to answer a thousand times before. The middle though, the autograph, that is when you get a few seconds of one on one time. I went up, had my Doctor Who picture to be signed and said "Obviously I'm a fan of Doctor Who but I have to say that your performance in He Knew He Was Right is my favorite. The knife scene was perfection." He got a far away look in his eye and smiled and said "Now that's an obscure one." So I got credit for being obscure. I'll take it. 
