Season 21 - Clarissa (1991-1992)
If you're a true Anglophile you have pondered, once or twice, about reading Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. Don't deny it, you know you have and you just as quickly realized you probably never would. Because while it is ranked as one of the greatest English novels it is also one of the longest. I am not saying this lightly. I've breezed through doorstop tomes in my life and this one makes me stop and consider if I'm that committed a reader. I mean yes I want to but realistically, no I won't. I remember seeing the book once physically at Borders and wondered if it was a dictionary. The type was so tiny! The tome so weighty! Which is why this miniseries is great. As I see it, if you can make this good a miniseries, which is only four episodes long, out of a book that has 943,000 or 984,870 words in it depending on which of Richardson's edits you're reading then the book might be a tad overwritten. The story is a simple one, girl inherits fortune, family try to influence her, drive her into the arms of the wrong man, and she dies in sin. Richardson was apparently pissed that people liked Clarissa being seduced by the wicked Lovelace, hence the different editions of the book. But this miniseries fully plays into this love of the unrepentant bad boy by casting Sean Bean. He's so deliciously evil. Sean Bean as Lovelace was also a major inspiration in a series I love by Lauren Willig. Without Sean Bean there'd be no Lord Vaughn! You want to think good of Lovelace, you want Clarissa to run from the original literary rake, and at the same time, you so want them to play out this doomed love affair to the very end. And oh, that ending! In fact, I think that is what made the greatest impression on me, when Lovelace falls to the blade wielded by someone he thought was his friend, and that someone is played by an even better Sean than Bean! Sigh. I'm talking about Sean Pertwee. Yes, as in the Third Doctor's son. I fell irretrievably in love with Sean Pertwee as Jack Belford. A few years back he was scheduled to be at a comic convention near my house and I was totally going to go just to see him. I even thought, would if be weird if I asked him to sign a copy of Clarissa? But then he had to film a guest spot on Prodigal Son. So while I haven't met him (YET!) at least that guest appearance was totally worth it. Seriously, you all need to be watching Prodigal Son!
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