Season 17 - Fortunes of War (1987-1988)
As a person with an obsessive disorder once I find a film I love I will just watch it over and over again. This was very bad on VHS tapes when I was young. I would literally wear them out. I even once wore out a DVD set... At the beginning of high school the film being obsessed over was Dead Again. Doomed lovers reincarnated to not only get their happily ever after but to get revenge for their deaths? Oh yes please! What I loved most about it was the fact that Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson weren't just lovers in the film but their love was real! I became a little obsessed with their relationship and would watch anything they were in together, with especial love for Peter's Friends and Much Ado About Nothing. In our house we had a book on the history of Masterpiece Theatre and there was a picture in it from Fortunes of War. Seeing as this was the miniseries they met on and where they fell in love, to me, this was the beginning of their love story and therefore it was very important that I watch it. At the time you couldn't rent the miniseries so I had to content myself with drawing the picture in the book. I remember that I was convinced the only way to get Emma's hat right was with watercolor pencils. Let's just say I'm still not the best with this medium and when I was a teenager I was worse. I kind of ruined the picture and moved on to obsessing over the movie The Tall Guy, Emma Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, pure genius. By the time I finally got to watch Fortunes of War Kenneth and Emma's marriage had imploded, and she had thankfully found love again in the arms of Willougby and as I thought at the time, Kenneth could go fuck himself. In fact I kind of still feel that way but begrudgingly admit he occasionally has talent. So it was bittersweet seeing this miniseries that meant so much to me long before I had seen it. In fact, in my mind, they aren't the stars of this miniseries. Yes, I know, I know, it says they are, but Ronald Pickup as Prince Yakimov stole the show. He had a little bit of an Edward Gorey vibe with his long fur coat, and I just adore him. And when he met his tragic end in Greece, not only did I learn about the atrocities the Nazis perpetrated on the Greek, but I also felt like I had lost a friend. RIP Prince Yakimov. But thankfully Ronald Pickup was still making movies and television shows until his death at the age of 80 this year.
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