The Larkins
When it was announced that there was going to be a new adaptation of H.E. Bates's Pop Larkin books I was honestly baffled. I know reboots and reimaginings are all the rage, but the early nineties television series for ITV, The Darling Buds of May, is a legit television classic and made a star of Catherine Zeta-Jones while further cementing David Jason and Pam Ferris's status as British living legends. In fact it was one of the first big British television series that I was able to get through Netflix in the days of DVDs by mail. For some reason the discs I kept getting for episodes five and six which adapted A Breath of French Air always arrived damaged. But I persevered and eventually, as in at least a month after starting the episodes, I got to see Anna Massey in all her glory. Because so much in life comes down to, is Anna Massey in it? And if the answer is yes then I have to see it. This has backfired a few times, but for every production of The Robinsons there's a He Knew He Was Right. But when Bradley Walsh was announced as Pop Larkin after his successful run on Doctor Who I knew I wanted to watch the newest adaptation. And then they cast Sabrina Bartlett as his daughter Mariette. Everyone has actors they can't stand. They see them and they just can't watch them. Sabrina Bartlett is that for me. The only role I've ever liked her in was in Poldark, because she was murdered. When Arya was wearing her face on Game of Thrones I couldn't handle it. Then when she showed up on Bridgerton, hell no. Other shows she has been in over the years I have successfully blocked memory of her from. Like Victoria, she was on that!?! Guess I can't rewatch it. But then I got Acorn so I could see the final season of Doc Martin and I try to use my subscription services to the max so I thought, what could it hurt? It's only seven episodes. Even if I hate it it's only a week! But then I was surprised. I loved the new adaptation. Somehow Sabrina Bartlett was perfectly cast as the headstrong Mariette. In fact every single member of the cast was perfect. Sure, this a rural idyll, an England that never was, where everyone is happy and there's more than plenty on the table and tax men become family members, but I didn't care, I fell in love with the Larkins! And then tragedy struck! As in scandal, chaos, all was not right in Kent! Rumors abounded that all was strife behind the scenes. Sabrina Bartlett quit and was replaced with someone cast just because they had the hair and teeth. But Sabrina Bartlett wasn't the real problem, apparently that was the actor playing Charley, Tok Stephen. There might have even been inappropriate pictures texted to Sabrina so everyone was naturally shocked that he wasn't fired and was coming back for season two. But the truth is he was sidelined. The show lost something of it's spark. They didn't want another romance to be the focus of the second season so they asininely decided that Pop would go to prison. While this is actually what happens in the third book in the series it just felt depressing and contrived and too much of an overbearing story arc. Add to that everything seemed to be overly lite to look all sunny when it wasn't, overall the second series felt like a badly put on stage play, all surface, no depth. Continued rumors of tension behind the scenes meant that this is the last this iteration of The Larkins will grace out screens. Of course Bradley Walsh took the bullet and said it was due to his busy schedule. Very gentlemanly of you Bradley, Pop would be pleased.
Ah, The Cinder Path, I think this might have been my first foray into Catherine Cookson territory. There's a chance that this other movie I was obsessed with might have been written by Catherine Cookson, but I have yet to figure out which one or even if it is by her. Let me know in the comments below if you have a detailed knowledge of films that are about farm girls who look vaguely like Kathy Ireland who get involved with their boss's son/nephew and have a magical summer together but she ends up pregnant and he goes back to his friends... You would literally be solving one of the mysteries of my life. Back to The Cinder Path. So there's one reason and one reason only I watched The Cinder Path, and that's Lloyd Owen. So I've always been obsessed with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Like hardcore obsessed. Like I have a fan magazine actually signed by Indy himself, that would be Sean Patrick Flanery to everyone else. Well when I was rewatching the show a few years back now I was all, who is that hot actor playing Professor Henry Jones, Sr., the role iconically created by Sean Connery? The answer was Lloyd Owen. So I started looking up other things he'd been in around the time he was Indy's dad. I vaguely remembered him in Coupling, but The Cinder Path looked interesting. Also Catherine Zeta-Jones from around the time of The Darling Buds of May! Interesting fact, she was also on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles if you were interested in other facts from that show. I have lots of facts from that show. LOTS. Anyway, this is pure Catherine Cookson, slightly over the top, I mean, love saves our hero from the shrapnel that could either move towards his heart and kill him or away from his heart and save him. It's so melodramatic it's kind of ridiculous but also hits the spot just right when you're in the mood. The only real complaint I had for this miniseries is that Catherine Zeta-Jones spent way too much time on horses and "the cinder path" which was a form of punishment didn't look that punishing. I wanted more, walking on hot coals, this was kind of, could they at least look like they're in pain?
