Season 12 - The Good Soldier (1982-1983)
If you are watching this for Jeremy Brett, be forewarned that there is a lot less Jeremy Brett than the DVD cover would have you believe. This is a starring vehicle for Susan Fleetwood and Robin "OG Poldark" Ellis doing his best Morgan Freeman narration in the era before Morgan Freeman started being known as the go-to narrator and was known as that guy from The Electric Company and various soap operas. The Good Soldier is a tale of infidelity set against the backdrop of a German spa town revolving around two couples, the Dowells and the Ashburnhams. This adaptation leans heavily on the 1974 adaptation of The Great Gatsby with a dash of Brideshead Revisited, ironic because The Good Soldier predates both and more than likely influenced both. It's slowly paced, but a wonderful study of lives falling apart and what we are willing to endure for those we love. Told non-linearly we get glimpses of happy days and the disaster that is to come. Hint, it's a lot of suicide. What I particularly liked is that this felt a bit like it was cracking open the facade of the stiff upper lips of the Brits. Underneath it all they are just a complete mess of repressed and pent-up emotions that will eventually explode, usually in a darkly comic manner. That's the key here, you have to be willing to embrace Ford Madox Ford's dark humor. The Good Soldier began life as The Saddest Story but the publishers wanted a new title because of World War I and Ford Madox Ford sarcastically suggested The Good Soldier, because Brett's character is anything but a good little soldier, and the publishers jumped at the new title. Now you might be wondering, how can infidelity and suicide be darkly humorous? Well, it's all in the execution. The pauses, the timing, and the reasoning. Oh, and the dramatic wailing and gnashing of handkerchief's in hands. In fact the only memorable part of the 2012 Benedict Cumberbatch adaptation of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End was Reverend Duchemin's suicide, brilliantly brought to the small screen by Rufus Sewell. So if dark humor and distinctly British entropy is your cup of tea then be sure to check out this production from the early eighties.
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