Season 56 - The Count of Monte Cristo (2026)
I took three and a half years of French in high school. Looking back I'm amused that when the class started reading books we went directly from Le Petit Prince to Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. That's quite a linguistic leap. Beloved children's book to mammoth literary classic? Sure, why not! After all my reading comprehension of French has always been stronger than my speaking comprehension. And I probably remember no opening of a book better than The Count of Monte Cristo because of getting to experience the classic for the first time in its original language. I am not the only one of my close high school friends to feel this way because one of them developed quite a fixation with the 2002 adaptation of the book starring Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce. And it is that adaptation in particular that meant that this one was needed. Because let me tell you, if you're a book purist, that one lives in cloud cuckoo land. Not that this one is perfect. But it's damn close. It doesn't hurt that it has eight episodes in which to tell the tale. And to think, after the first episode, I actually doubted that I would like it let along love it. My initial hesitation is that the first episode has a different tonal quality to the rest of the series. This is an epic story of revenge and the first episode is just putting all the pieces in place, which is why you always give a show two episodes to prove its worth. Always. What's more, because the first episode is fifteen years before the main action of the story there's some dubious application of makeup to make the cast look younger. Hale and hearty they are not. Over the hill actors trying to appear youthful? That's more the mark. Thankfully by the time we get to the second episode and Edmond's imprisonment we get a brilliant two-hander with Sam Claflin and Jeremy Irons. Their interaction and Edmond's education are sheer brilliance. This resets the show and it's on with the vengeance. Machiavelli would be so proud. Because Edmond doesn't take the advice of Abbé Faria while they are imprisoned that 'before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.' While I think Edmond would agree that he filled a grave or two with the innocent, making him regret his actions, personally, I think it was completely worth what was lost. The cabal of evil against him were selfish and a malignancy on the world. And, I got to say, no one has ever done that combination better than Blake Ritson. Time and again these are the trademarks of his best characters, and Danglars is right up there with Oscar Van Rhijn and Count Girolamo Riario. In the final episode when he has a full blown panic attack about his financial situation, oh, the swift swing from desperation to hope, the way he looks at Edmond with tears in his eyes and the sheer perfection of his comedic pauses while drinking a glass of water. Oh, I wanted to give him a standing ovation. If I have any complaints about this adaptation it's that it took two years to finally air stateside and that the music could have been more dramatic. My family and I were watching this paired with The Forsytes and my brother keep saying over and over, if only Anne Dudley was doing THIS show and not the GQ version of The Forsyte Saga, think how perfect this would have been? Instead we have very kitschy opening credits and a retro font that looks like it belongs on a romance novel. Because, sadly, nothing in this world can be perfect. But this is close.
