The Buccaneers
Back in the nineties everyone was obsessed with the new adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with moist Colin Firth. I wasn't an exception to this rule, I was fully committed, six tape VHS boxset and all watched over and over again. But there were two other period pieces I gravitated towards more often, mainly because you could always stumble across one or the other in the middle of the night on upper cable channels. I'm talking about Louisa May Alcott's The Inheritance and Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers. For years I didn't know what either was called, in my mind it was TV movie with mom from Family Ties with Greg from Dharma and Greg and the miniseries with girl from Son in Law. And yes, that's the Pauly Shore movie. I don't think it was until the advent of Netflix that I was finally able to watch all of The Buccaneers in order, but I loved watching it knowing so much of the cast from other shows I loved. I recently had time to rewatch it and the ending left me cold. The women were pushed aside for the men to take center stage which narratively made absolutely no sense at all. Which made me super excited when I heard that Apple was going to be making a new adaptation of the Wharton book. And not to put to fine a point on it, but she never finished the book so there's a lot of liberties you can take, which Apple of course was quick to capitalize on, hello Lesbians! But I was also worried, would they go all Gossip Girl with this? Or, horror of horrors, Bridgerton? And while yes, you could see they were veering toward the wisteria laden land of the Bridgertons, thankfully without trying to pass off modern music as "art," there was actually a more Clueless vibe. I had hope. At least in the beginning. I was baffled by them starting the show quite far into the story and making Saratoga Springs out to be like it's in the sticks, when it wasn't, it was about new money versus old money, and then there was the swapping of character traits and backstories in an attempt to make it fresh. OK, I can kind of see where you're going, but the main problem was they created this to be a series so while the adaptation in the nineties covered ground fairly quickly here, once the girls get to England, the story stagnates. Nothing happens. They brood over their lives and then get together and scream. A lot. There's a lot of childish hen night behavior used to pad the episodes. And Nan's courtship would never drap on this long. The episode though that broke me was the Christmas episode. Nan's love interest looks like he's wearing Colin Firth's sweater from Bridget Jones's Diary. In the library there's a globe with Alaska on it. And then to add insult to injury, they take the loving governess Miss Testvalley and turn her into Mary Kay Letourneau. It's not spelled out, but given how her three charges turned out, I think she sexually abused them all, preying on them from the shadows. It's just so fucking creepy. There could have been depth here but there's no depth at all, it's all lets run around and giggle without evolving. And as for the "ending!?!" Nan gives everything up for her evil sister? Nope. No way. That's it for me. The least I expected was a reveal that Miss Testvalley was Nan's mother, instead Miss Testvalley is a pedophile and they decided to do a Dynasty and hold the reveal of Nan's mother until next season to see if they can get a big name star. My advice to anyone offered this role? Run, don't walk. You do not want to be involved in this trainwreck.
With the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice A and E had a legitimate hit on their hands. This was something new for the cable channel known mostly for their show Biography, an attempt at a "classier" celebrity expose. Therefore when The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was announced, it wasn't just announced, the red carpet was rolled out, Max Beesley was going to be the next Colin Firth, and if that wasn't enough, look, they have Mr. Bennet playing Squire Allworthy! Yet they forgot the old maxim about catching lightning in a bottle... There was no way that any ad campaign they could come up with would generate the same buzz as Colin Firth in a pond. And not to slight Henry Fielding, but it's not like he has the fan base of Jane Austen. And yes, I bought the official tie-in hardcover edition that Modern Library released and I honestly tried to read it. Honestly I did... But I literally gave up not even a full chapter into the book. There's something about me and Tom Jones that just doesn't connect unlike me and Austen. In fact, and this is slightly embarrassing to admit, I'm not even sure I watched the whole 1997 adaptation, which I might possibly rectify one day soon. I remember the beginning, vaguely, and then there was a happy ending... But don't hold me to anything in-between other than apparently Jackie Tyler from Doctor Who was in it. I did tape it. I just didn't bother to watch it. And after five minutes of this new version I would have been glad to go back and watch the 1997 version instead. The thing about the story of Tom Jones is that it's a romp. It's very farcicle, I mean just look at the characters names! There should be rumpy-pumpy music and, well, rumpy-pumpy. Just think of the version in the sixties with Albert Finney and that's what is expected. This was just joyless. It was a slog to watch and there were only four episodes! What's more, despite having many actors I like and admire I didn't have a single character I was rooting for and I felt embarrassed for Hannah Waddingham. Not to mention the complete lack of chemistry between the leads. The only thing that was positive about this adaptation was Sophia Western being born to Squire Western's son and one of his slaves. They used this as an opportunity to actually talk about slavery and the worth of a human being unlike in Queen Charlotte, where they create a fictional "great experiment" to move society forward into a fictional realm. Here we have a grounding in reality which makes sense historically and might also be why the show doesn't work. But I don't want to be the one saying that slavery is the reason this doesn't work, because every chance you get to decry slavery you should, I'm saying it's endemic of a greater issue, they didn't understand the source material. They could have gone the way of many adaptations of late and done their own thing, and that might have been better, more real, because to attempt to balance the history of the times with the sexual shenanigans of Tom just didn't work. You can't choose the middle ground, it's lazy storytelling, you have to pick a side so pick wisely. 
The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths
Emma by Jane Austen
Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor by Stephanie Barron
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
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.
When I first "discovered" Colin Firth, AKA when I watched Pride and Prejudice in the summer of 1996, I embarked on a voyage of discovery among his back catalog of work. I rented EVERYTHING the local video store had. Another County not to be confused with the far superior A Month in the Country! The ill-timed and ill-conceived Valmont. Apartment Zero with it's deliciously devious denouement. I even trolled late night television and stumbled on Camille. But one day I saw a DVD release for a show called Lost Empires. Seven episodes full of Colin Firth! That's one more than Pride and Prejudice! I remember when it arrived I invited my mom to watch it with me. We made it only as far as the first episode. Because as she said; "If I have to watch Laurence Olivier for one more minute doing stupid jokes and dressed up as an Edwardian child with makeup I'll scream." Or something to that effect. I did try to point out that as he died at the end of the episode we wouldn't have to see him anymore. She didn't buy it. And in fairness, I wasn't that interested in completing it. Watching a baby Colin can only carry your interest for so long. But I've been viewing this Masterpiece Theatre retrospective as a chance to get around to the shows, some of them classics, that I hadn't gotten to yet. Therefore seeing as I already had the DVD set, Lost Empires was top billing! Oddly enough my first impressions aren't too far off my final impressions, but over the years I've watched a lot more shows of similar themes so I feel more justified in my opinion. I have watched a lot of miniseries set in music halls, from Tipping the Velvet to that one dreadful episode of Thomas and Sarah, and this has to be the least annoying due to the lack of songs getting stuck in your head combined with not being overly problematic with regards to black face and really horrific racial stereotypes. Yes, there's still an entitled white man playing an Indian mystic and a really weird hatred of midgets, but for what music halls were known for it's pretty tame, especially when you watch other shows. Which means instead of dwelling on how problematic it is in that regard, you can pick apart all the other problems. The bleak, fatalistic attitudes, the creepy sex parties, oh, and the shoehorned in happily ever after that really makes no sense. So if you want to see some really young Colin Firth doing an occasionally passable Yorkshire accent in a miniseries that is trying to state something bigger than they are capable of, IE the end of the music halls and the end of the age of the British Empire, than this downer of a miniseries is for you!
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are gateway drugs to the best of British comedy. For me it all started with Peter's Friends, which is technically not a comedy, but Fry and Laurie also go beyond the bounds of the comedic label, so I think that's a good starting off point. From there I found The Young Ones, Filthy Rich and Catflap, Blackadder, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and, of course, Jeeves and Wooster. To this day they are to me everything that is great and good about British acting and television. I will listen to or watch anything that they are in, but it's when they are working together that they reach new heights. Jeeves and Wooster was actually made concurrently with A Bit of Fry and Laurie and I think that them working together at all times made the relationship between Bertie and Jeeves that much more real. What's more, their personalities kind of fit their characters so much so that at times I might wonder if Stephen Fry is wandering around Hugh Laurie's house tidying it up and putting things to rights. Stephen Fry's fussy side comes out while Hugh Laurie's goofy side with a large dollop of musicality come to the fore. Jeeves and Wooster is pure fun comfort viewing, it has the beautiful country houses, troubles that aren't too troubling, and there's the fact that you'll see all your favorite British actors playing minor rolls which were constantly being recast, usually to delightful results. I mean four different actresses playing Aunt Dahlia kind of lends itself to the idea that Bertie has a never-ending stream of interfering aunts. But series two was when the show found it's stride. Series one they rouged Laurie's checks so much he looked like a comical vaudeville drunk. But in series two Simon Langton took over as director! Not only did he direct the seminal Pride and Prejudice adaptation, the one with Colin Firth, but episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs, The Duchess of Duke Street, Love for Lydia, Rebecca with Jeremy Brett, Poirot, Rosemary and Thyme, Foyle's War, and Midsomer Murders! Plus series two happens to have my most watched episode of Jeeves and Wooster. How is it I've seen "Chuffy" what seems like a million times? Perhaps because it's the episode where Jeeves quits... Heaven forfend! Don't worry, it all works out! It always does in the England that never was of P.G. Wodehouse.
While Masterpeice Theatre has been around all my life the real moment I became a British miniseries addict was in 1996 when I first saw Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth. This was the point of no return. And I was canny enough to lay a lot of the credit at the feet of Andrew Davies. The more I saw of his adaptations the more I realized how good he was at his job. I don't care for all these revisionists out there, Andrew Davies was and is the king of adaptions. Period. In my attempt to watch everything he'd ever adapted I stumbled into George Eliot's Middlemarch. What struck me most was this adaptation was made only a year before Pride and Prejudice and at that time it was apparent that Andrew Davies was attempting to make a different Firth a star, Colin's younger brother Jonathan. Jonathan is a very talented actor but he has never attained the stardom his brother has. Whether this is just coincidence or lack of drive I don't know. But I first saw him in Covington Cross, a show notable stateside for the fact Glenn Quinn quite Roseanne to be on it. Jonathan also played a right asshole in the first season of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries as well as the ghost of a circus performer I believe on an episode of Ghost Whisperer. As I've said, an odd career. But with Middlemarch there's a scene where he's playing pool that gave me a chilling sense of deja vu. Because the same scene is in Pride and Prejudice! Literally the only difference is they swapped Firths and the felt covering on the pool table is a different cover. It's like Davies KNEW this scene had to work with a Firth brother and the first time didn't take so he tried it again and sunk it perfectly in the corner pocket. While these Firthian observations are all well and good the more pressing draw to me now is my love of Rufus Sewell. Oh my Lord M who is the only highlight of Parade's End. I first saw you in Cold Comfort Farm, then was amazed by your performance of Fortinbras in Hamlet, you only blinked six times the entire time you were on screen! But you stole my heart as Will Ladislaw, just as you did Dorthea's! Who needs financial security when you have love? 
In the days before the internet you'd be channel surfing, usually late at night, and find something you really liked and you'd watch as much of it as you could before you fell asleep because you never knew if you'd see it again let alone find out what it was called. After the successful airing of Colin Firth's Pride and Prejudice, on a cable channel no less, lots of shows that were originally shown on Masterpiece Theatre started showing up on cable channels late in the night to the delight of Anglophile insomniacs and night owls everywhere. Of course I'd catch them and wouldn't find out what they were until years later. Sometimes it was because I was able to accurately describe a scene to someone and they'd fill me in on what it was, hence the miniseries about deflating sheep turned out to be Far from the Madding Crowd with Colin Firth's younger brother Jonathan. But most often it was eventually an actor I recognized that got me to finally put a title to a favorite movie or series. This is how I learned the title of Louisa May Alcott's The Inheritance, because of Greg from Dharma and Greg. Also it's fabulous but nothing like the original story if you watch it and yes, that is Chilton from Gilmore Girls. So all I had to go on to find the title of The Buccaneers was that it stared the actress from Pauly Shore's Son in Law. To more knowledgeable people, that would be Carla Gugino, to me it was Crawl's love interest. I might have seen that movie a few too many times. So once I finally knew the name of the miniseries I obviously bought it, no questions about watching it first. This is everything an Anglophile growing up in America wishes for, that they go to England and are wooed by the most eligible of bachelors. Oh the cast, Michael Kitchen, Jenny Agutter, Connie Booth, Mira Sorvino, Greg Wise, and James Frain before he made it his lifelong ambition, or so I assume, to be in every science fiction show I've ever watched. And the houses! Yes, they DO film at Castle Howard, made immortal by Brideshead Revisited. Oh dear, I think writing this has convinced me I need to go watch this miniseries immediately, it's been too long.
One night back in undergrad two of my friends and I decided to go rent a movie. Remember video stores? Full of all those wonderful films yet somehow kind of grubby. We were walking from Rivendell (no really, my friend Matt lived in a big purple housing co-op named Rivendell) to the local video store a few blocks away. On the way there we found over $20 in cash on the ground that some drunk college student had obviously dropped. So dinner and a movie was on said drunk college student who was probably pissed in more ways than one when they found out. Four Star Video was known for it's rather indie pics. You could find basically anything there that was offbeat. After much toing and froing we decided on the Ethan Hawke/Kyle MacLachlan version of Hamlet and The Turn of the Screw, because Colin Firth. I'm not sure how far we got into Hamlet before it was ejected, but could have been twenty minutes could have been a thousand years. And that, my friends, is why you always rent two movies when you go out in case one is an absolute stinking pile of shit. Well, we didn't fair that well with The Turn of the Screw either. None of us had actually read the story, so we were all unprepared for the whole evil wins ending. What's more, and in fact more to the point of why it failed to meet our expectations is that Colin Firth was in the first five minutes and then never seen again. That's false advertising that is putting his name first! And yes, after this debacle my friends said I should pay them for having to sit through videos dubbed my choices... but they were free! And more importantly we did put it to a vote! But looking back, while The Turn of the Screw isn't my favorite ghost story out there this is the best direct adaptation there is, because at least they didn't throw in a weird insane asylum/murder conviction plotline like the 2009 version with Michelle Dockery did. So if you're looking for a faithful adaptation of The Turn of the Screw you can't go wrong with Jodhi May and Pam Ferris who are superb actors, but if you're looking for the best adaptation out there check out The Haunting of Bly Manor instead. 
There are some miniseries that aired on Masterpiece that have never been on DVD or streaming stateside and this royally pisses me off. There are so many great shows that once you see them all you're left with is your memory. And I know, I know, this is how things used to be. You'd see a movie in the theatre or watch a show and until the advent of home recording devices in the eighties this was just how you lived, off your memories. The two shows I most wish to see again are oddly both based on Kingsley Amis novels, Lucky Jim and Take a Girl Like You. Take a Girl Like You aired during a headlong rush of chaos in my life that resulted in me eventually take some time off from school. This is a roundabout way of saying I caught a little bit of it when it first aired, really liked what I saw, but was unable to watch the whole thing until it aired again a few years later. But at least that time I was prepared with a shiny new VHS tape to record it on! I really should bust out those tapes. I think I even have the Colin Firth miniseries of Nostromo... And yes, I'm weird in that I have a VHS actually hooked up to a TV so watching it wouldn't be a problem... Now this is all I'm going to be thinking about for days! Oh, I think I have Lucky Jim too! The real reason Take a Girl Like You appealed to me was the period setting and Emma Chambers was in it. Emma Chambers, who is sadly no longer with us, is an international treasure for her portrayal of Alice Tinker on The Vicar of Dibley. Emma only had twelve credits to her name, but the effervescent if slightly dim Alice and her lovely turn as Hugh Grant's sister in Notting Hill made her an actress never to be forgotten. Of course these were very up characters, very verging on hyper, so the depressing drunk who is more than a little bit of a Nosey Parker she plays in Take a Girl Like You is a surprising and delightful change. My mom and dad would say a depressing change, but I liked seeing her range. I also happened to notice that Rupert Graves was in this, but this was still during the time I hadn't warmed up to him. It was the one two punch of V for Vendetta and Sherlock that did that for me. But anyway, once I saw the whole thing, Take a Girl Like You is an interesting look at a very specific time in England and the sexual politics of dating. I just wish I didn't feel like it dated me to say how much I liked it when it aired over a decade ago!
When I was in grade school and high school Les Misérables was everywhere. In grade school the t-shirt for the musical was a badge of honor that your parents had taken you to a big city to see the show. In other words, that you had money. Just like winter coats with ski lift tags. In high school it was the cool music and theatre kids who wore them as a coat of arms. I, being the misanthrope that I have always been, took it as a mark of how cool I was that I had never seen the musical and had no desire to. Cats ALL THE WAY! I continue to revel in the fact that I have never seen Les Misérables and have no plans to ever see it. I know some of you are shocked and even some of you who I consider my close friends are planning on disavowing me, but you're not going to guilt me into seeing it. EVER! Therefore hearing that Masterpiece was doing a no singing, no dancing adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel made me very happy. I could finally see an adaptation without hearing "One Day More!" Even better, Andrew Davies was adapting it. I know a lot of you have issues with him, to that I say you're hypocrites. Davies can have a moistened Colin Firth but any other sex is off bounds? How do you think say the Bennet's had children in the first place!?! Sigh. Some people would rather live in cloud cuckoo land than the real world I guess and "modern" adaptations have, for the most part, succeeded by grounding them in reality. I also liked Davies attitude going in that he was going to adapt the book to show the lesser known storylines, the plot points that weren't worthy of the musical. Plus casting Dominic West as Jean Valjean and David Oyelowo as Javert was genius. I will watch anything with Dominic West, I ever finished out the shit show that was The Affair because he was in it and am really looking forward to the new adaptation of The Pursuit of Love. As for Les Misérables itself... it showed a very bleak and at times incomprehensible world. There is a lot of death and so much of it is unnecessary... but then, that's life. None of us get out of it alive. Though most of us don't just randomly die in a garden with no ovious cause of death. Could we get a crossover with Masterpiece Mystery and bring in Poirot? 
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
