Season 39 - Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2009)
When this adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles first came out I tried to watch it. I thought I had only made it through one of the four episodes but apparently I somehow actually made it through two of them. Now you might be thinking, oh, she had a problem watching this because Thomas Hardy is quite bleak and this is about rape, abuse, and eventual death, but you'd be wrong. It's not that I was OK with how horrible this story is, it's that I could barely get into the story due to the piercing headache I got at the hands of the score. Rob Lane's score is horrible, shrill, and just bores into my right eye socket and makes me almost pass out in pain. Every. Single. Time. The strings and the strings and the strings. Just make it stop! If his goal was to make me feel in pain to understand Tess's pain, well, good job. Now hopefully I'll be able to see out of my right eye again in the near future. People talk about the power of music, damn, this music packed a punch. And not in a good way. Just thinking about it makes my face hurt. What annoyed me even more about the score is once I was able to sit with the pain of the cluster headache behind my right eye I realized that the recurring theme of the score was triggering me to hum another song. You know how Tom Petty sued Sam Smith for similarities in Smith's song "Stay With Me" to Petty's song "I Won't Back Down?" Well, if you didn't, you now know. Petty won and is now listed as a co-writer. This came as no shock to me because every time I heard "Stay With Me" I'd get "I Won't Back Down" in my head. The same thing happened once I pushed through the pain here. I started getting the theme to Gosford Park by Patrick Doyle in my head. Which made me extra angry. Because not only is this music horribly painful to listen to, it's not even original. I really just can't with this miniseries. I was promised Anna Massey and instead I have baby voiced Gemma Arterton and a whole bunch of actors I have previously loved either being evil or miserable. Poor Jodie Whittaker, what this miniseries does to her makes the backlash of her becoming the Thirteenth Doctor look like child's play. And what do you get if you actually make it all the way through the miniseries!?! Fuck all. The love of Tess's life, Angel Clare, there has to be a special hell just for him. Let me recount for you what happened at the beginning of the third episode for your enlightenment. Oh, and to set the scene, it's their wedding night! Angel, in the depths of agony: I hired a whore once. Tess: I forgive you. BTW I was raped. Angel: You're a whore! Here's £25. I'll see you when I see you, I'm off to Brazil. Me: Hopefully to die from some horrible tropical disease. Fuck you Angel Clare. Fuck you and your hypocrisy. You could have all been happy, instead you chose misery. In fact, I wish for you to have to listen to the score to this miniseries for an eternity. That might just make up for what you did to Tess. Maybe.
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