Season 0 - The Forsyte Saga (1967)
The Forsyte Saga wasn't just how Masterpiece Theatre came to be, it was also the beginning of what we now know as Event Television. It was a runaway success in England, the country virtually shutting down when it aired. The then president of WGBH seeing the viewing numbers once it aired stateside decided that there was an audience for British programming in America and created Masterpiece Theatre, with another Susan Hampshire led drama, The First Churchills, as the inaugural broadcast on January 10th, 1971. If, like me, you knew about the Forsytes more because of the Damian Lewis adaptation in 2002 than the original and have therefore been hesitant to embrace this older, and dare I say it, black and white production with flimsy sets and sometimes ludicrous old age makeup, let me say that I loved this production. It was just what I needed at this moment in my life. The newer series has so much emotion, it's like a raw nerve, and I can't handle watching it because I end up a blubbering mess, despite which I still adore it. Now this isn't meant to be a slight on the older series saying it lacks emotion, it's entirely the opposite, I think it's more realistic. People don't live their lives like they're one of the Brontes! They live it in little, contained rooms where specific sets and emotions are kept in check. Therefore when something does happen, when change upsets these little well ordered lives, it has a greater impact. I grew to love all the characters and all these little rooms. Over the twenty-six episodes my opinions of all characters were constantly in flux, but I knew one thing, I never wanted it to end. There was just something so comforting in watching this family's life unfold over the decades. I always wondered why the 2002 series ended when it did, not seeing out the series until the death of Soames AKA Damian Lewis, but now I get it. There's a VAST tonal shift when we move from the older generation to the younger. Before there were huge swathes of time, the whole series taking place over forty-seven years, and tons of characters with a set narrator, and then we have a small set of characters going slowly through a few years in their lives. To give you an idea of the change, in one episode nineteen years elapses, and in the final fourteen episodes, more than half the series, only seven years! But of all the shows I've watched this years for Fifty Years a Masterpiece, I know I will return to this, and interestingly enough another adaptation by Donald Wilson, Anna Karenina, also starring Eric Porter.
After the deathly dull adaptation of 
The Ruby's Curse by Alex Kingston
Raptor: A Sokol Graphic Novel by Dave McKean
Years ago I went to the Paine Art Center and Gardens up in Oshkosh to see "Fashion in Film: Period Costumes for the Screen." I freely admit I went for one reason and one reason only, and that was to see the costumes from the Colin Firth adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. There were lovely surprises too, an amazing costume Cate Blanchett wore in Elizabeth that had a panel that was actually from the time of Queen Elizabeth I, the ballgown from Ever After, and on and on, I spent hours looking and looking again. They even had all the costumes for the 2000 Kate Beckinsale/Uma Thurman production of The Golden Bowl, AKA one of those movies I keep meaning to get to, especially as it was directed by James Ivory of Merchant and Ivory. But then I heard about the old Masterpiece Theatre adaptation, well, I figured six episodes had to delve deeper than a two hour movie! Plus it starred Gayle Hunnicutt, loved by me for being James Beaumont's mother on Dallas and the final girl in The Legend of Hell House. Another delightful surprise was Daniel Massey, brother of the amazing Anna, as Prince Amerigo, who also had a complicated love life just like the Prince, leaving his wife Penelope Wilton for Penelope's sister Lindy! So what of this Henry James story about a father and a daughter who end up caught up in the affairs of ex-lovers... I really don't know what to say. I watched six episodes and nothing happened. I'm not even sure if there was an affair. Was the dutiful daughter Maggie's husband having an affair with her father's wife Charlotte? Meh, can't be certain, and I couldn't even really bring myself to care. There is just so much verbiage and talking around the issue that nothing ever really gets said. And as for the narrator? Well, if he were still alive he would make a killing doing those little audios that help put people to sleep. I literally zoned out for whole chunks of time. I would have said I fell asleep without knowing it, but I was on a treadmill and seeing as I didn't end up in a pile on the floor I must have remained upright. I will say that the sets and costumes kept me entertained. And looking back on that long ago trip to Oshkosh, the large living room that they placed the costumes for the movie in looked very much like it could have been a room in Mr. Verver's house.
The Edwardians is an odd series because I don't think it was meant to be a series. It's just eight ninety minute long stories about prominent Edwardians. There is no cohesive theme, no cohesive style, more on that later, in fact some of the episodes are in black and white while others are in color and all have horrible sound. I'll note I have no idea if half the episodes being in black and white was due to a Colour Strike like with Upstairs, Downstairs, but my guess is that it wasn't. Also use the closed captioning, it will help with the sound. What the series did do well was highlight bizarre aspects of these seven peoples lives that might be common knowledge in England but which I personally didn't know too much about. And if you noticed that there are eight episodes but only seven eminent Edwardians profiled, it's because one of the episodes is just about Edwardian music halls and their performers unionizing leading to a very bleak ending when the days of the music hall died. You will learn lots of weird things about the Edwardians sex lives, Frederick Royce, of Rolls-Royce, had a sexless marriage, Edith Bland, the children's author known as E. Nesbit, was basically in a trupple and raising the other woman's child as her own, Conan Doyle was having an affair on his dying wife, and Lloyd George, well, he'd sleep with anything. As an interesting aside, the Conan Doyle episode does a better job with the George Edalji case than either 
The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives by Kristin Miller
The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig
The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente
These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan
A Radical Act of Free Magic by H.G. Parry
Country Matters started with delight and surprise. So many favorite actors as fresh faced youths! There's Ian McKellen, Peter Firth, looking about twelve but actually nineteen, and yes, that is Isobel Crawley! It took me about fifteen minutes to confirm it was indeed Penelope Wilton in her second ever television appearance. I mention it to save you the fifteen minutes of confusion that I grappled with. But once you get past these revelations and the discordantly cheery theme music you come to the realization that this series is nothing but unrelenting pain and misery. The second episode almost did me in. I never give up on shows and "The Mill" made me want to throw in the towel. Every single episode just grinds you down with despair. Rape, unwanted pregnancies, prison, disfigurement, stillbirth, lies, affairs, suicide, unhappy marriages, on and on and on, grinding you down more and more. Many people complain that this DVD release contains only eight of the thirteen episodes produced, famously omitting episodes staring Upstairs, Downstairs favorites Pauline Collins and Meg Wynn Owen, as well as a second Peter Firth episode, but most importantly episodes starring Jeremy Brett and Michael Kitchen. All I can say is that if they are anywhere near as depressing as the eight episodes I slogged through we are all better off without them in our lives. Because I can tell you now, there is no way in hell I could have made it through five more episodes, I barely made it through these. Going back to the worst of the lot, "The Mill," it's about a poor girl no longer wanted under her parents feet so she's sent off into service where she dutifully attends to her bedridden mistress while being raped every night by her mistress's husband. She of course gets pregnant and is run off home. Why would ANYONE want to watch this? Episode after episode shows the perils of pregnancy for unwed women, but this was wantonly cruel. All these episodes are adapted from the works of A.E. Coppard and H.E. Bates, and after Bates's "The Mill" I came to dread his episodes, despite the fact he wrote the delightful The Darling Buds of May. Which makes it extra ironic that the ONLY story that could be said to have a semblance of a HEA was his "The Ring of Truth." So if you REALLY feel like after this last year you could do with a big old helping of despair, might I suggest Country Matters for your viewing masochism?
You literally CAN NOT think or talk about Masterpiece Theatre without thinking or talking about Upstairs, Downstairs. They are inseparable. One can not mention Jean Marsh without thinking of Rose Buck. Or Gordon Jackson without actually believing that he might be Hudson, foibles, xenophobia, and all. Each season focused on the trials and tribulations of the Bellamy household and how they handled different crisis, from Elizabeth's imprudent marriage, to Lady Marjorie dying on the Titanic, to James's imprudent marriage, to World War I, to the roaring twenties and the bright young things, to that tragic ending! Oh James, how could you? The family had often faced financial ruin, but somehow there always was a way. There could have been a way if you had but tried! But I can see that the showrunners wanted to end on a dramatic note. What's interesting about the forth series is that we have perhaps the most sustained theme over any of the other series, that being World War I. Of course Upstairs, Downstairs handles even this most used of historical periods in their own unique way. This uniqueness is that we see how the war effects everyone at 165 Eaton Place. So yes, we get the tropes of the son being almost mortally wounded and nursed back to health by the woman he truly loves, who happens to not be his wife. As for the wife, she falls for someone else yet somehow they keep up the pretense of their marriage despite neither being happy. Yet what I'm drawn to is how the staff took part in the war. You rarely get to see how the everyday folk pitched in, other than knitting socks and balaclavas! Hudson becomes a Special Constable and helps police the streets because he is unable to serve, Rose works on an omnibus, Edward joins the Army, Ruby works in a munitions factory, everyone finds a way to help the war effort while also carrying out their regular duties, well, aside from Mrs. Bridges who just seems to be angry about the lack of produce and wants to hoard everything she can. Which seems very relevant today, as did the handling of the tricky topic of disinformation in the press with regards to the war. Upstairs, Downstairs was praised at the time for making history timely and relevant. And with season four ending with Hazel dying from the 1918 influenza pandemic, it's even more relevant today.
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Steel Fear by Brandon Webb and John David Mann
The Shadow by James Patterson and Brian Sitts
Hollywood Heroine by Sarah Kuhn
Silence in the Library by Katharine Schellman
Madame Bovary isn't exactly a show to watch for some light fare unless you like watching someone die from eating arsenic. Emma Bovary literally has a "breakdown" in each of the four episodes. And by breakdown, I mean she throws a shit fit and takes to her bed because she didn't get what she wanted and "collapsed." Such causes for shit fits range from abandonment by lovers to not liking the shitty town her husband has stuck her in because he lacks ambition to financial ruin. Literally the only one worthy of a breakdown was the financial ruin she brought on herself. Because losing it over a young admirer whom you gave a rug to, seriously!?! You have got to admit that in older literature it's sometimes hilarious what causes women to suffer. Especially when they blame her second breakdown on plums. Yes. A doctor and a pharmacist blame her "illness" on plums! The absurdity of plums aside, this is worth watching for two reasons, the first is Tom Conti. I believe I first some him in an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's The Inheritance, where I first saw his patented air of benign absentmindedness. He is, in my mind, Mr Bennet in the flesh. Just sitting there in a room with a smile plastered on his face, exuding goodwill, and being baffled at the tumult around him. That is what he brings to Madame Bovary as her husband Charles. This wonderful vulnerable bafflement that makes you just want to protect him from his scheming wife. Out Emma! Let Charles just stick to what he does best and stop trying to make something of him. Ugh, if I had a husband as good as him I wouldn't treat him like filth. But, then again, by now you should have guessed I hated Emma. Though she did have a redeeming aspect, AKA, the second reason to watch this show, and that is that Emma was played by the always wonderful Francesca Annis! But the real reason is that this miniseries "reunites" her with Dennis Lill. Dennis Lill played Bertie, the Prince of Wales, in Francesca's career defining turn as Lillie Langtry in the miniseries Lillie. And while technically this was made first, I saw Lillie first, so I view this as them reuniting to have another affair. There should be some weird French or German word when you're someone's lover in different incarnations shouldn't there? Well, it sure tickled me to see them up to their adulterous ways once again. And it really tickled me when he dumped her ass. Oh, the blithe acting in that scene was perfection.
So Nicola Pagett is a woman unhappy in her marriage and pregnant by a man other than her husband. And no, this isn't season two of Upstairs, Downstairs, this is Anna Karenina. Though you could be forgiven for mistaking one for the other if you took out the fact that I like Karenin far more than I ever liked Lawrence Kirbridge. Moving on, I should put in a train reference here but I'm just not that witty today... Anna Karenina is a classic that I have been meaning to read for forever, have not gotten around to, knew it ended with Anna's death under a train, and eventually just decided to watch the miniseries. Because if there's one thing you can be certain of, this is the definitive adaptation. Yes, there have been many movies, yes, there have been quite a few other television adaptations, but are any of them ten episodes long and bother to included the somnambulist psychic Landau? No they do not! And I'm sorry, but Landau became my favorite character with only a single scene. He's basically Rasputin if he was played by Seth Green. Seriously, one scene just wasn't enough! What I loved about this series is that it makes you believe at all times that it is a true epic, but with a very human element, which is what the best epics are. There's love and betrayal and wonderful snarky society snubs that surely had to inspire Edith Wharton when she sat down to write The Age of Innocence. There's all this great grandness, even the palace from Netflix's recent adaptation of Shadow and Bone gets a look in, but at the end it's about Anna. And my feelings about Anna are complicated. I get the whole, she is trapped by the strictures of society of how a woman should behave and therefore her only option is suicide. But on the other hand, time and time again she is given options, she is given other ways she could live, and she chooses that which will make everyone as miserable as her. She makes people suffer for loving her. She has a slightly justified persecution complex, but one wonders, as she herself does, even if she hadn't found Vronsky was it all just inevitable? Was her life destined for entropy? All I know is that unlike some of the series I've watched for the first time for 
Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
Synchronized Sorcery by Juliet Blackwell
Kill All Your Darlings by David Bell
The Bone Code by Kathy Reichs
Manfrone or, The One-Handed Monk by Mary Anne Radcliffe
Incense and Sensibility by Sonali Dev
Island Queen by Vanessa Riley
The Hollywood Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal
The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta
Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood by Danny Trejo
Last year I decided to watch a whole lot of old BBC miniseries that I had been meaning to get to with the loose theme that they all related to Edward VII. I watched Edward the King, because, Edward obviously! I watched two shows about Edward's mistresses, Lillie and The Duchess of Duke Street. Then I went more generic with The Edwardians and Berkeley Square bringing the viewings to a close. Berkeley Square was the only series I had actually seen before but now I can proudly say I've seen them all! As Patrick Stewart said, "I've seen everything." What's interesting about Lillie is that Francesca Annis played the character of Lillie Langtry in Edward the King and was so popular they made a whole series about the infamous mistress to the king and the famous actress she became from childhood to death, and the death was probably not meant to be hilarious, but she was picking fights in bars where you paid men to dance with you, so, that's on her. If the series had one fault it was that they didn't bring Timothy West back to play Edward, but I forgive them because I got to see a bitty baby Rupert Giles as Lillie's older brother in his second ever role! But while Francesca Annis, in my mind, didn't make that much an impression in Edward the King to warrant her own series there is one actor in her series that deserved their own. Lillie fell into the artistic community of the time where she quickly became it's star. She hung out with the likes of Millais and Whistler, her presence inspiring them. But the one historical figure she formed the strongest relationship with was Oscar Wilde. Now I am a huge fan of Oscar Wilde, I even wrote a lengthy paper on him for a class on writing for the threatre in undergrad, so I take my interpretations of Oscar VERY seriously. Stephen Fry is probably most famous to my generation for portraying the author, but no offense to Stephen, Peter Egan just blew me away. Peter Egan is still a stalwart British actor keeping his hand in the game, he was on this past season of The Spanish Princess AND he was on Downton Abbey. But forever more to me he is the only portrayal of Oscar Wilde I will ever think about. The pathos, the feeling, the tragedy, I don't know if I have ever, in my entire life, seen a better performance in ANYTHING! While I wish he had gotten a series of his own, Oscar's life is fully seen through the lens of Lillie's life. I'm just greedy because I want more. 
