Season 54 - Nolly (2024)
Noele Gordon was the star of the British soap opera Crossroads until she was unceremoniously sacked. The character of Meg Mortimer was no more. The decision was, as with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a "purely financial" decision. But she would not go gently into that goodnight. This three episode miniseries concentrates on the spectacle of firing a beloved star at the height of her fame while completely missing the boat because the audience has no idea why she was fired other than allusions to her being a powerful woman. And while we are given an "answer" by the end, Noele herself never was, so why give her this knowledge? Was it so important to Russell T. Davies that Nolly knew? Because I couldn't care less. At no time do we actually connect with Nolly. Helena Bonham Carter is having fun camping it up, especially when on public transport, but that is all, a caricature of a biopic. Now, this lack of connection might be different for British audiences who grew up watching Noele Gordon, but for Americans, I think I speak for the majority of us by wondering why this was even made. Because, if you actually research what happened, RTD is playing fast and loose with history. Nolly's got the basic facts basically right, but they're manipulated and massaged to tell the story of this gay icon. Here's an idea, how about you actually show us why she's a gay icon instead of her bonding with the new actress of color, Poppy Ngomo, who actually wasn't on Crossroads and is a stand-in for another character entirely? The disconnect between who RTD thinks the audience is and who the audience is is astounding. This was obviously a passion project for him and as all his passion projects ultimately end up, it was meant for an audience of one. He made this for himself and no one else darlings. He was bitter he never got to write for Crossroads and so he rewrote the ending and filmed it just for his own amusement. This is literally the only explanation I have for this and for "Space Babies." Whatever RTD had once he no longer has. I just can't with him. The breaking point was actually taking the amazing character of Belinda Chandra, who was all about her career, and turning her into a mother. Women don't exist just to be mothers Russell! The only point to watch this show is Con O'Neill. He's been around forever, don't believe me he's appeared twice in the Inspector Morse universe, but his performance of Izzy Hands on Our Flag Means Death was a rebirth, for the actor as well as the character. While people complain that we didn't get a third season what would have been the point without Con O'Neill? Here he brings a gravitas to the executives. If Nolly didn't have him as an antagonist, this show really would have had nothing. As it is, it's still just a RDT fever dream that just happens to have a great actor in it.
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 farcical, 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 
Hot air balloons and Phileas Fogg go together like Amelia Earhart and aeroplanes. But here's the thing I learned from Michael Palin; Phileas Fogg never goes up in a hot air balloon once in the book. It's a conceit entirely made up for the adaptations and ingrained on our minds by the poster for the 1956 film starring David Niven. In fact almost everything I know about Around the World in Eighty Days I learned from Michael Palin and his documentary where he tried to recreate the journey. Perhaps I should read the book? Or perhaps not. Reading the summary it doesn't seem to have aged well with regard to indigenous cultures. Well, the best thing that can be said about this adaptation is it gets the balloon out of the way in the first episode. I really don't know who this adaptation is made for, aside from my Dad who loves it despite all it's faults. Each episode feels like they have to build to a "teaching moment" with a "very special guest star" who will explain why whatever the issue of the day is is bad. How did they get Lindsay Duncan to do this show? I know she has some schlock on her resume, but seriously? Which brings me back to the who is this written for? Children would be bored stiff, adults just see what's wrong with the whole production and feel a little talked down to when we're told racism is bad. Yeah, I do know a lot of people might need reminding, but I don't think those people are watching PBS. The aesthetic is more Dickensian than Attenborough, and I think you'd want to marvel at the world not make it so dark and dirty. But perhaps they were pushing against all the previous primary color adaptations. As for the music? Hans Zimmer's studio has a lot to answer for for this entirely unappealing Murray Gold wannabe vibe it's failing hard at. It would literally be better without music. Or if it wasn't ripping off another of their own productions, His Dark Materials. In fact everything about this production, aside from the casting, is poor. I actually feel sorry for the actors. David Tennant, Ibrahim Koma, and Leonie Benesch are acting their hearts out and breaking ours and the material is just failing them. I feel bad. Especially for Miss Fix. Here we have a woman finally with her own initiative in this male world, being based on Nellie Bly and her attempt to beat the fictional Phileas Fogg's eighty day journey, and instead it takes her from being a world class journalist and intrepid explorer to someone prey to love and yelling about the Chinese not inventing forks. Seriously!?! At least have some standards for the writing! And shoehorning in how she's "changed" as a throwaway line in the finale doesn't count as proper character development. And don't get me started on her pretty dress!
I've been a fan of Hayley Atwell's for what seems like forever, but looking at her credits it's been about twenty years starting with the Sally Lockhart films. But it was her portrayal of Agent Carter, giving us a non-superpowered kick-ass female lead in the male dominated Marvel universe that forever made me a fan. That and her hilarious lip-synch videos and self-deprecating social media presence. So I was aware of The Long Song since the day it first started filming back in 2018. And since the day later in 2018 that it aired in England. Nowadays with shows being shown almost simultaneously stateside thanks to premium cable channels and services like BritBox I kept waiting for The Long Song to finally air here. And I waited. And I waited. Seriously, Howards End with Hayley's portrayal of Margaret Schlegel ran on Starz and even re-aired TWICE on PBS and still I waited for The Long Song. Until finally it was announced as part of Masterpiece's 51st season in 2021. I would finally get to see the adaptation of Andrea Levy's book! And ironically, considering how long I waited to see this, I think 2021 was the perfect time for it to air. Right when America finally said enough and embraced Black Lives Matter on a scale it should have always been embraced. Though sadly since that time we've regressed, and it's more important than ever to look back and see the horrors of what we have done in the past and continue to do in the present. To know that this is our history. This happened and if certain people in power have their way it will happen again. To not flinch away from uncomfortable truths. And the truth of the matter is Hayley is nothing more than odious comic relief, as she should be in this setting. As she herself said "I play a heinous, vile old cow [as] Variety reviews my portrayal: 'an actor who typically radiates warmth, does a remarkable job of curdling the atmosphere of every room unlucky enough to have Caroline in it.'" And her partner in crime is Jack Lowden as the ambitious Robert Goodwin. If you've fallen for him as River Cartwright on Slow Horses, well, here you get to see his true acting chops, joining Hayley in camp odious and vile. I wish I could say I knew then that he'd be a star, but I so didn't. Because the real star of The Long Song is Tamara Lawrance as July. A slave who was taken away from her mother to be a plaything for Caroline. Who, despite everything, is a source of joy. Her life keeps beating her down again and again yet she is a "joyous survivor" as one reviewer said. And that's the heart of The Long Song, showing the horrors unflinchingly but celebrating the joy of surviving and creating a better world. Here's hoping we can rebuild and make a better world together.
Masterpiece: America's 50-Year-Old Love Affair with British Television Drama by Nancy West
Tom Batemen just can't catch a break, my sexy man from Da Vinci's Demons. I know at the moment things are looking up because of The Love Hypothesis and how he's basically starring in Reylo fanfic which is really funny if you know he's married to Daisy Ridley, but he has starred in so many wonderful shows that were cancelled before their time that I can't help but call out the injustice of it all. Jekyll and Hyde, damn, that one hurt. It was such a fresh interpretation of the story and yet deliciously retro and deco. But nothing hurt me more than Beecham House. I've been a Beecham House stan since day one. It's a unique period piece that covers a time in India that isn't much discussed and was a frothy soap opera as well. I mean, where else but in a soap opera would Mrs. Patmore be a drug addict, Henri Leclair be in an entirely inappropriate and regal bed, and someone actually trust Marc Warren? And unlike another show of this time, Beecham House was actually filmed in India. Yes, I'm looking at you Indian Summers. More like Malaysian Summers amiright! Rewatching this show I was actually more angry than sad followed by more sad once the anger had passed. Some of the best shows I've loved over the years have just unceremoniously ended. Am I drawn to that which is so unique it can't thrive? Do I have such odd taste that only a niche fandom supports the shows I love? Well, probably. But that's because I crave originality and despise the predictable. Which means I usually fall for that which is doomed. Though I would rather have one season of Beecham House than none. I would rather have my hopes dashed, once again, than never to have had hope in the first place. What struck me most this time wasn't just that this was another show cancelled before it's time starring Tom Bateman, it was another show cancelled before it's time starring Amar Chadha-Patel. Amar Chadha-Patel is a very talented actor who really came into his own as Boorman on Willow. Now Willow is a whole different kettle of fish. Not only was it cancelled by Disney after a certain fangirl had waited basically her whole life for the story to continue, but then they scrubbed it's existence. You can't legally watch the show anywhere. The sheer rage I feel at this is beyond anything I can express. But mainly it just makes me sad. See, sad again. Amar Chadha-Patel was stellar as Ram Lal in Beecham House, which was cancelled. Then in Year of the Rabbit as Detective Sergeant Keith he was fabulous, which was renewed and then retroactively cancelled. And then the aforementioned Willow. Could someone cut this guy a break!?! Because this is breaking my heart. Much as the fact that I will never see John and Margaret marry or John be reunited with his son August or if Violet will ever find a suitable match. So many things to regret. Oh well, onto the next show I'll fall for too hard that will then be cancelled.
While I have been very vocal about theatrical releases not belonging on Masterpiece, I feel like The Chaperone is one exception I can make. After all it is adapted from Laura Moriarty's book by Julian Fellowes and it stars Lady Cora herself, Elizabeth McGovern. In fact, because apparently executives who make these decisions think we're dumb and one actor can't play two different characters with the same name, the "chaperone" was renamed Norma from Cora just so Elizabeth McGovern could play the role. I remember when the book came out it made quite a splash, I have a copy around here.... Somewhere. Which is why I was hesitant to watch the movie before I read the book. And in another aspect of my life I've been very vocal about, I eventually just gave up planning to read the book first and watched the movie because of Haley Lu Richardson. Yes, I finally watched this movie because of season two of The White Lotus. Because if there's one thing I was adamant about before watching this movie it was that they had to get Louise Brooks right. Once I saw Haley Lu Richardson on The White Lotus I was no longer worried and it was finally time to watch this movie. It didn't hurt that I was subscribed to the PBS channel on Amazon at the time. I don't know what I actually expected of the movie, after all it's called The Chaperone, not Louise Brooks, but I certainly expected more Louise Brooks. Instead we're following around Cora/Norma in New York City as she tries to solve the mystery of why she was given up for adoption and what this revelation means for her going forward. She doesn't have a loving marriage, she doesn't even know if she knows what love is, but seeing Louise dance sparked something in her and she decides she needs to do a bit of soul-searching. Honestly I found it all rather boring and trite until it ended up being downright unrealistic with her and her husband living together in polyamory with both their male lovers. Because that had to be so realistic for Kansas during WWII right!?! Now I'm not saying that this type of thing didn't happen, I just think the way it's portrayed here with everyone living openly only within the confines of their house is unrealistic. I mean Cora/Norma is passing off her lover as her brother! Hasn't anyone in town noticed they're a little too close? The thing is, this rather radical lifestyle could have been used as a counterpoint to Louise's own life. She didn't play by anyone's rules. She was born to be a star and she became one. She was the torchbearer for sexual liberation and Cora/Norma becomes sexually liberated, and yet there seems to be no connecting the two women's journeys. They are both in the same room but aren't interacting. It's just the weirdest feeling watching this. Because you only get glimpses of Louise's story and I wanted to yell at the screen to follow her. What was she doing while Cora/Norma was in the park being told she was given away just because she didn't fit in with her family's plans and she will never meet her siblings. I know, I know, I was wanting something I was never going to get. On the other hand, if they ever decide to actually make a movie about Louise Brooks I know who I want to play her. 
I have never met someone of the female persuasion who doesn't hold a strong opinion on which is their favorite adaptation of Little Women. My friend Marie favors the 1949 version because she's a huge fan of Margaret O'Brien of Meet Me in St. Louis fame. And I totally admire Marie's bravery in embracing being entirely wrong because the best adaptation is obviously the 1994 version with Winona Ryder. Accept no substitutes! Especially if they're trying to foist that horrible 2019 Greta Gerwig version on you. Beth isn't a framing device and Florence Pugh is incapable of passing for twelve! Why did that have to be the last film I saw in theaters before the pandemic!?! It has wormed its way into my brain and is sadly never to be forgotten because of it's proximity to pandemonium. This miniseries was the latest adaptation save the Greta Gerwig version and I had literally no desire to see it. The main reason I didn't want to watch this was because it was filmed in Ireland. I know, that seems a really weird reason to not watch a show, but everyone knows what the March's house and environs look like because you can literally still go there. I've been there, and while this adaptation might have had some accuracy with regard to the interior layout what the hell was that color the house was painted!?! Those trees, what is up with those trees around "Walden Pond!?!" Oh, and the fact that the newspaper where Jo sells her story in "Concord" is in Eliza Scarlet's office, I'm even more exasperated by the Ireland choice. But then again three of the most important roles, including Marmee, are played by Brits. And I want to make it clear, I'm not against casting Brits in American roles or vice versa, it's just that this is perhaps one of the most famous American books of all time, which wasn't even published in the form we know in England, to have such a British presence behind the scenes is odd. I mean, it made me not watch it for eight years. And now that I have watched it, there's still a disconnect. It feels off. And not just because Laurie is played by Ruby Sunday's horrid boyfriend from the last season of Doctor Who. There are views that feel more Heidi Thomas's than Louisa May Alcott's. The character I have always related to most is Beth, and not just because of the name thing, because anyone who knows me knows I hate the diminutive Beth. She's a homebody, someone fine with staying put but not being left behind and here she's an agoraphobe. This didn't sit right with me. It's complicating and belittling her character at the same time. As for the changes to the other sisters? Oddly enough I think Maya Hawke was a great Jo and it was nice to see Willa Fitzgerald not being pursued by Ghostface. And yes, I am still bitter about the lack of an ending on the Scream television show, why do you ask? Also we will not be discussing season three because who knows what that even was supposed to be. But the changes to Amy? Oh my. I didn't think it was possibly to hate her all the more but they made her destruction of Jo's book far more premeditated and pathological. Though, again, one actress playing Amy just doesn't work because a woman can not play twelve. It doesn't matter how immature she acts or the cut of her clothes or the braiding of her hair, she comes across as someone playacting as a child and it's creepy and off-putting. So in the final anlysis, yes, it's a fine adaptation, not without it's flaws, but it's not the 1994 version with Winona so why settle for less? 
Why was this on PBS!?! No really, I want to know, why was this on PBS!?! It was made by Amazon. It was released on Amazon. It was still on Amazon when PBS aired it eight months after it dropped and instead of having to wait seven weeks to realize this series was going nowhere you could have sat on your couch for almost seven hours and come to the same conclusion. This is actually worse than when Masterpiece randomly airs feature films because at least in some of those cases, especially in the early nineties, people didn't have access to those films. So while it felt like cheating just airing someone else's work, at least it was with the interest of their viewers in mind. Whereas here!?! Everyone has access to Amazon. Literally everyone. I could have forgiven them this weird decision if the show actually was something. But it isn't. This show is nothing. The Collection has an amazingly talented cast but the story, what was the story!?! Was it about the Sabine fashion house being Nazis collaborators? Was it about the family's complete ineptitude at covering up a murder? Which makes me think that they couldn't have been collaborators because they were just too damn stupid and they so would have been caught. You don't bury a body in the backyard of a house you own! And then, when it's discovered, you don't move it! Nothing here is straightforward. Everything is told in the most roundabout and confusing manner possible. For example, one of the girls in the seamstress shop secretly had a baby. Yet the father of the baby appears to be the closeted brother played by Tom Riley who's the genius behind the house's designs. How did he hook up with a woman? Especially when his current boy toy is fertilizing his mother's garden in the country? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Because, they don't tell us. Even if this show hadn't been rightly cancelled I don't think they would have ever given us answers. They were too interested in things looking pretty, the costumes just so, the photographs in the vein of Funny Face, just right. The irony of a show about fashion being all surface isn't lost on me. Though I honestly think it's lost on them. I really think they thought they were making something important, something of worth, something that made a statement. That statement was look how easy it is to waste Amazon's money. The only thing I am here for is that we are firmly in the era where Frances de la Tour is choosing her roles based on how much she gets to sit around and what delicious foods she gets to eat. She's doing a Maggie Smith, with just as barbed a tongue, but a lot more noms. Vanity Fair, Professor T, she's just living her best life. Sadly, this show wasn't up to her abilities, but at least I could take solace that at least someone enjoyed this series, because I sure as hell didn't.
The Durrells in Corfu is a series whose existence defies explanation other than a starring vehicle for Keeley Hawes, which I would normally wholy agree with, just not in this case. The thing is, in 2005 Simon Nye wrote the delightful movie, My Family and Other Animals, adapting the book of the same name by Gerald Durrell. A mere decade later he revisited the exact same subject matter but made it into a series. It's the same team just with prettier actors! Embrace the glow up! Imelda Staunton is out, Keeley Hawes is in! And while I would have liked to have spent four seasons with the cast of the movie, I did not enjoy spending four seasons with this iteration of the Durrells. The overwhelming problem is that this show boils down to two concepts; English exceptionalism and mom needing a man. Time and time again the Durrells think they know best, and while they are proven wrong over and over again, they don't grow from their experiences, instead by the end they are putting on a show of how much they've learned from Corfu when really it's just patronizing the locals. And it is oh so painful to watch. This show smacks of jingoism and now I get why the Queen said it was her favorite television show. But moving beyond the racism, there's the sexism. Oh dear lord. While it might be funny to have the writer Lawrence Durrell, who wrote rather racy literature, to boil all of one's problems down to sex, I just couldn't stand it. Not a second went by in this show where he didn't declaim that all of his mother's problems would just evaporate if she just got herself a man. While yes, during this period in history, a lot of a woman's financial stability relied on having a husband, I think Louisa was doing the best that she could. Why would she burden herself with another male? She has two sons who are insufferable asses, aside from being misogynistic, a self-centered daughter, and only one child who is delightful and his only crime is curiosity. I honestly do not get how people not only liked this show but loved it. I could barely get through it. There are literally only two episodes I can think on fondly, all the rest I want to pretend I never saw. Each and every single episode created a new aspect of these characters for me to despite. Let's take Leslie played by Callum Woodhouse who went on to play a slightly tamer version of the same character on All Creatures Great and Small. So his girlfriend gets pregnant and he fully gaslights her. It's not his, she couldn't be pregnant, is she sure she's pregnant, oh, it's totally not his. And the story is framed in such a way that we are to find it humorous and to side with Leslie. A man during this time could walk away from his responsibilities and just pick up his life elsewhere, whereas a woman would be destroyed. And yet we are to side with the man!?! The more I watched this show the more I thought that Simon Nye himself has to be sexist because how could you even write this if you didn't believe it? I just, ugh, I can't with this show. I am an anglophile and this was just too in your face about the greatness of England. I mean, they are on Corfu, maybe celebrate Corfu a little!?! Don't always deride it. But then, if this show was boiled down to one concept it is derision. Derision of women, derision of others, and, even derision of the audience because they don't give a shit about wasting your time.
Wolf Hall is an intriguing look at the life of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII wherein it tells the story by telling the stories around the story. We don't see the big expected moments, we see the quiet contemplative moments where time stops and takes a beat before resuming. Mark Rylance is able to portray all that is going through Thomas Cromwell's mind with just a look, a simple sigh, a readjustment of his robes before entering a room. This is a masterclass in acting while at the same time you don't think of him as an actor in a role, he becomes Thomas Cromwell. Just as Damian Lewis becomes, in my mind, the definitive Henry VIII. There's humor, there's pathos, there's regret, and there's menace. All that is needed for a king because they can turn on a dime. One minute you're in favor, the next, because you couldn't do the impossible, you're dying in a cold room alone crying out for your loved ones. The first season covered the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn culminating in her death while the second season, arriving a decade later, charts Thomas Cromwell's life mirroring Anne's all the way to the gallows. They both went above their station and displeased the king and their downfall was inevitable. Because to gain power you gain enemies and if those enemies, even for a second, gain the ear of the king, well, you're in trouble. And the second season covering the final book in Hilary Mantel's trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, is Cromwell realizing that to get where he is in life he has done some pretty despicable deeds for the greater good of the kingdom. I mean, I could have told him that right away, no one involved with the monarchy in any way has a clear conscious. Yet I think he really thought he was the good guy, he thought that what he did was right and it's only when the daughter of his mentor spurns him and calls him out does he start to question his life. For someone who was so good at his job to lack such self-awareness is kind of an interesting sight to behold and Mark Rylance is able to give it the right gravitas. But my problem with this series is that the first season was sheer perfection. There was not a wrong note. In only six episodes it showed how this man moved through the world and was shaping history by taking care of the little details. Then a decade passes and they decide to finally adapt the final volume and things have changed over time. And instead of striving to maintain faith with the first season they decided to shake things up. There's still basically the same fantastic leads, the same sumptuous costumes, the same music keeping pace with time advancing forward, but there are serious missteps. My main quibble was with the recasting, some of it blatant stunt casting. Obviously some actors had to be recast because they had died. That is the only legitimate excuse for recasting. They should have dragged Tom Holland back to set and demanded he play Cromwell's son. Spiderman can wait! There were just so many cast replacements that I was baffled. And none of them for the better. They didn't even have the same vibe. I mean, what the hell is going on with Chapuys!?! The two different actors don't even have a nominal similarity. And don't get me started on the lack of Jessica Raine! And yet, the way this was filmed they act like we should somehow be able to intuit without being told that these are the same characters. I fear that is not the case. You can tell a story by telling around it, you can't tell a story if you don't tell us who the people are. I recently read a review of the first two books and the reviewer was outraged that they had tried to adapt such stunning works for the small screen saying it would take away the magic. I say, they did have the magic. They just lost it after a decade.
Two series about the advent of department stories debuted within six months of each other and if I had to pick one I would not have picked Mr Selfridge, Jeremy Piven and Andrew Davies must accept my apologizes, because I would have picked The Paradise. Created by the team behind Lark Rise to Candleford with many of the same actors, this was another loose adaptation of a classic that captured my heart and swiftly became one of my most favorite series ever. There was just such heart and romance and, unlike Mr Selfridge, there was more than a little of the Upstairs, Downstairs dynamic. Here we really got stuck into the lives of those working at The Paradise as well as those running and funding the roadshow. We saw the haves versus the have nots and how a major department store economically impacted it's small business competitors, a concern that is even more relevant today. When Denise Lovett arrives on the scene she becomes the focal point of all that is happening. She straddles both worlds, he uncle having a business that is struggling because of The Paradise, while she herself takes a job at The Paradise, and is soon seen by the owner, John Moray, as a girl after his own heart. She's smart and a self-starter and soon steals his heart. Of course there's a love triangle and many complications. This wouldn't be a show worthy of Masterpiece if there wasn't. But what I really liked most about this series is it wasn't afraid to go dark. As in, there's a murder! Arthur Darvill of Doctor Who fame gets involved in The Paradise when his storefront is bought by the expanding store. His style doesn't mesh well with the glamour Moray sells and, well, one thing leads to another, and his body is found in the river. The culprit is of course revealed, which goes into the ties that bind us as a community and as a company and as a people together. Just writing this makes me sad all over again that such a lovely show was cancelled too soon. But I'd rather have it cancelled too soon than have it overstay it's welcome, which is sadly what happened to Lark Rise to Candleford.
Making Masterpiece by Rebecca Eaton
Mr Selfridge is a series that really came into it's own over time. If it had kept on the self-indulgent and self-destructive trajectory of the first series it wouldn't have lasted beyond it's second series, and I wouldn't have watched another episode. Did anybody really want to watch the hallucinatory post car crash episode? NO! Well, probably Jeremy Piven, but no one else. Instead we were lucky enough to have four series, three of which understood that while Selfridge, the man and the establishment, were the glue that held the series together, it was really the supporting cast, the workers of said establishment, that made the show work. It was the romance of Henri and Agnes, Miss Mardle finding purpose in her life besides being Mr. Grove's mistress, Arthur Crabb just being Arthur Crabb, the unexpected alliance of Frank and Kitty, the machinations of Lord Loxley, the delights of Lady Mae, I could go on and on because there was so much to love in this show. But what really made the show click for me was that in series two, besides the tonal shift, I knew Rose Selfridge was on the way out. Here's the thing. Everyone has an actor or actress they just can't stand. Watching them is like having your eyes being slowly clawed out of their sockets or having really painful dental surgery. Well, for me, Frances O'Connor and that Jack Nicholson Joker-esque smile of hers is at the top of my hate list. The hate started for me with the horrific 1999 "adaptation" of Mansfield Park, of which the less said the better. My feelings were really solidified by the movie A.I., and well, the rest is history, as in, I historically and forevermore will hate her, no matter what, and I thank the stars above every day that the adaptation of the Locke and Key series with her as Nina wasn't picked up and want to hunt down whomever cast her on the second season of Wednesday, because how dare you pollute that gloriously dark show with her presence. Anyway, end rant. After the first series when the show was picked up for a second series I read a bit about Harry Gordon Selfridge to separate fact from fiction and see where this show might be headed and I saw that his beloved wife Rose, played by Frances O'Connor, died in the pandemic of 1918. Not good news for the real Rose, great news for me! All I had to do was get through her scenes in series two, which were minimized because of expanding the plotlines to include the supporting characters, and I'd be home free. Series three starts with a very welcome funeral. Sometimes the tragedies of life can make me happy and sometimes they can make me sad. Like the accusations against Jeremy Piven. While he's been tentatively welcomed back into film and television I will never watch him again. Which makes Mr Selfridge sadly something that will forever be in my past. I don't think I could ever bring myself to watch it again. So this is not only a salute to the show by a farewell. Listen to the victims and believe them. And never, ever, support abusers. Even if it means saying goodbye to something you once loved. 
For years I put off watching The Mystery of Edwin Drood because I wanted to read the unfinished manuscript by Dickens in order to read Dan Simmons's Drood. Then when this movie came out, because even if they call it a miniseries, only two hour-long episodes only equals a movie, I still hadn't gotten around to my previous goals so I thought I'd wait. Well, seeing as it's now way over a decade later and I still haven't gotten around to reading, well, either of the aforementioned books, I figured it was time to watch this adaptation. Plus, I was going through severe Freddie Fox withdrawal. Who would have thought I'd ever like anyone other than Tom Hiddleston playing Loki!?! And now that Freddie's really the only socially acceptable male Fox, how could I not give into the craving? Which sadly this didn't quite assuage. In fact, if you really need a Freddie Fox fix Year of the Rabbit episode three, "Gangs," is perfection. There is of course the first few seasons of Slow Horses, but, things don't end up so well for him there.... Back to Dickens! There are many problems with this "miniseries," the most glaring of which is how forgettable it is. I just watched this and I am struggling to recall anything that happened. The problem was this should have been minimally a three-part adaptation. It's just too short to get the full panoply of Dickensian characters. This is exacerbated by the fact that the entire first episode is basically Matthew Rhys in a drugged fug, making anything happening too hard to comprehend even for Hunter S. Thompson. Which, if they had stretched this to three episodes would have been mitigated. Because the angry dissociation of the first episode would have been just part of our tale not half of it. Well, more than half of it because it's not like John Jasper is giving up the drugs anytime soon. And yes, I think if Dickens had survived Wilkie Collins would have possibly had a valid case for libel. But the saving grace of this series is David Dawson as Bazzard. David Dawson who just happens to play Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man," in the aforementioned episode of Year of the Rabbit, "Gangs." Seriously, go watch that episode. It might be one of the funniest things you'll ever watch in your entire life. While here David Dawson brings the Dickensian vibe this series was so sorely missing in its first half. He is the clerk to Edwin Drood's fiance's guardian. And given this is Dickens, that's actually a concise relationship. Usually they are all convoluted and full of secrecy. He basically gets stuck into all the mysteries and secrets and just solves everything. I'm sad that he couldn't solve the problem of this show, but there's only so much one character can do. Especially if he's given only one episode to do it in.
I know there are those out there who love this adaptation of the book by Winifred Holtby, but I am not one of them. I even gave it a second chance but I just can't with it. If anything I hate it even more. Given the cast and the crew you'd think this would be right up my alley, but the cat hanging out in the alley trying to upstage Anna Maxwell Martin and Douglas Henshall is the only part of this miniseries that I actually like. If you've watched the 1978 adaptation of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie you are in the wheelhouse of what I was hoping for with this series. A look at women overcoming the roles they were forced into because of their sex and raising each other up and tearing each other down within the setting of a local community and its school. And there are glimpses of that. But instead there's a prevalent dirty old man vibe that I can't get beyond. The creepy sexualization of children in a school presentation, the lecherous board member, and then the problem of David Morrissey's Robert Carne are too much for me. All the dramatic music in the world won't trick me into liking a series which holds up a rapist as the romantic ideal. But surely, that's not what this series is doing you say? Oh yes. It is. So Robert Carne has a wife Muriel. She is institutionalized and he has bankrupted himself to make sure she gets the best care despite the fact she would rather just be at home. But she wouldn't have had to be institutionalized if not for him. She had been told she is under no circumstance to have a child. Robert knows this. They practice safe sex with a diaphragm. He comes back from the war and finds her flirting with other men in her bedroom, he snaps and proceeds to rape her. Muriel gets pregnant with a child, their delicate daughter Midge, and she loses her mind. From the show you can assume it's unspecified hysteria that probably arises out of postpartum psychosis, though it's never spelled out. But what is spelled out is that this is all the result of having a child. Therefore it is Robert's fault. Supposedly the weight of caring for this woman he has never stopped loving is what has damaged his heart and he will one day succumb to an angina attack. Which, if I'm honest, he deserves. He deserves death and pain and more. If he loved this woman so much why did he destroy her? And he KNEW it would destroy her. Enter radical schoolteacher Sarah Burton played by Anna Maxwell Martin. She is the antithesis of everything Robert Carne stands for and yet she falls for him. She falls for him hard. And I am flummoxed as to why. They have one or two dances at a hotel over the holidays and are ready to jump into bed together, all while he's hallucinating his wife, and that was all it took to steal her heart. Does she have like a Heathcliff complex? That she falls for the worst in humanity? I really would like to know more about her fiance that died during the war. Was he also a deplorable? Because make no mistake, if this were contemporary and set in America Carne would be MAGA. And yet, as Sarah is declaiming her love for him, she says she hates everything he believes in and stands for. Um, girl, what someone believes in and stands for are what they are, so how do you love him exactly!?! As I said previously, I just can't with this. South Riding can go ride off into the sunset. Or better yet, die in a cliff collapse.
The first time I ever heard of The 39 Steps was when my mom got her complete set of The Franklin Library of Mystery Masterpieces. I spent hours pouring over the covers of the books. The one that fascinated and intrigued me the most was The 39 Steps. It was a pen and ink drawing of what appeared to be a giant black cloud or rock hovering over a staircase going down the side of a cliff. It was unnerving and strange so it should come as no surprise that it was done by Edward Gorey. At the time I was not yet an avid reader so books were all about their outward aesthetic and this one has always stayed with me. Which is why when I started to get into film, and in particular Alfred Hitchcock, I was really excited to watch his adaptation of The 39 Steps. Hitchcock, especially in his early films, is very hit or miss. I feel like 1940 and Rebecca was his turning point. Therefore The 39 Steps, made five years earlier, suffers. It doesn't help that a lot of outdoor scenes were filmed on sound stages. This is something that is a personal pet peeve of mine, primarily because of Hitchock's Suspicion. Therefore when it was announced that there was a new version of The 39 Steps coming out staring Rupert Penry-Jones I was more than a little excited. He is Captain Wentworth in my favorite version of Persuasion, so I was all in, even if he wouldn't reach the pinnacle of his career until a year after The 39 Steps with Whitechapel. When creating this adaption they wanted to go all in on the Bond meets Bourne vibes, but I think of it more as Lord Peter Wimsey meets Indiana Jones. There's an elegance to Penry-Jones as Hannay that is more upper class English gentleman than Bond ever was. He's also just reacting to situations he's thrust into, much like Bourne, but oh so British. Bond was almost always in control and too cool a customer. This was just a thrilling adventure with some of the best of British television stars where sadly David Haig was playing against type as the baddie. Which is why I feel it's more in the territory of Indiana Jones. This could be an exciting serial at the cinema back in the day. And much like Professor Jones, I objected to some of Hannay's more sexist attitudes towards women. But by the end his partner in crime, Victoria Sinclair, had more than corrected all of his attitudes with her competence and cunning. The fact that a woman with eidetic memory saves the day really warmed my cold embittered heart. Yet the highlight for me, and for Rupert Penry-Jones according to interviews, is that they totally did the crop duster scene from North by Northwest. Now you might think they just added this as a little nod to Hitchcock's film but that isn't the only reason why. In the book when he arrives in Scotland Hannay's pursuers use a plane to find him. So maybe Hitchcock liked the scene from the book so much that instead of using it in his adaptation he kept it to use on a later film? I'm just saying it's a possibility. But the biggest possibility I wished for this movie hasn't come to pass, and that's a sequel. As I mentioned before it has that vibe of adventure serials which inspired Indiana Jones, and it's not like John Buchan wrote only one Richard Hannay adventure. He appears in eight books! Why can't we just have more fun shows like this? Well, probably because of all the people bitching about the wrong make and model of cars in this and not just taking it as it is.... But I can't blame them too much, I'm a pedant too depending on the topic.
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.
There are so many confined and staid and uptight and stagy adaptations of Forster's work that it's a breath of fresh air to watch one that has real passion. An adaptation that could move you literally to tears. While there might be those who criticize Andrew Davies's adaptation for playing fast and loose with the storyline, I counter that he cut to the quick of the story and kept that which was vital intact. If you weren't a Forster purist or had never read the books, just watch the old Merchant and Ivory adaptation and then watch this one, it is without a doubt that this version makes a better film. That is what it comes down to in the end, which is the better movie, and this one will always win, even with the weird transfer error of blurred behinds and a lackluster score. What I think made this version work was that, like the book, the integration of Lucy's piano playing as a window to her soul was actually incorporated throughout the movie. Instead of a few set pieces with Helena Bonham Carter rigidly sitting at a piano and obviously not knowing what to do, here Elaine Cassidy throws herself into the music and bares her soul. It is distinctly a plus that you can actually see that she is playing the music, even if the ADR team might have dropped in a more accomplished version later. One can not stress enough that to make a good movie you have to connect with your audience, and this connected with me, with passion and empathy and yes, love, and sometimes it hurts. All the feels in this movie just made it more real, more human, more alive. There's affection and attraction. If you look at the kiss between George and Lucy in the Merchant and Ivory adaptation, it's like watching two people who don't even like each other being yelled at by the director to kiss and they are going to try to stop the inevitable for as long as possible. That kiss is painful to watch. Here, well, the kiss is painful to watch for different reasons. There is abandon and discovery in it. True feeling. True connection. It's joyous. In fact, I would say that is what is at the very center of this adaptation, there is joy. Life is breathed into the story and we connect to it because it's joyous. There's this message that we are to live life now. Live for today. Don't settle, don't do what you think is expected of you. Don't go for the passionless Cecil, go for the man who makes your heart race as he sneaks a kiss behind the bushes. In this version by downplaying Cecil and actually giving George all his lines you actually connect to George in a way Forster wanted you to but was never quite able to accomplish. The speech that George gives to Lucy and Charlotte in the dinning room before he is banished from Windy Corner makes you realize how they are meant to be. I was like Charlotte, in the corner weeping, because this is what love looks like. You fight for it, you make your case, you don't go off like a wounded dog wrapped in a blanket in a carriage.
What most of us turn to Masterpiece for is a good old fashioned period drama. Yes, there have been modern shows here and there, and many quite exceptional, but for most of us it's all about the period drama. Well, watching The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard now, it feels like a period drama. Looking back on a simpler time in politics before Trump and Brexit it feels so long ago that it's a different era. Plus with the cast, Steven Mackintish, Jodhi May, Janet McTeer, Carey Mulligan, Geraldine James, Tom Mison, Siobhan Finneran, and Harry Hadden-Paton to name a few, it is like the best of the best from British period dramas are represented here. Then factor in the Downton-esque music by John Lunn playing over several characters from Downton Abbey, and well, it might be modern but it feels like Masterpiece to me. Though it's an odd little miniseries, written by Sally Wainwright who has gone on to create the procedurals Scott and Bailey and Happy Valley, the feel good Last Tango in Halifax, and the sensational period lesbian romp Gentleman Jack, The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard never really finds it's feet and ends on an abrupt note, and that note was only on the DVD at that. Ros Pritchard is a woman with no political experience who ends up Prime Minister by just telling it like it is and vowing to never lie. While I adore Jane Horrocks, she doesn't have the heft needed for the role and is outclassed by everyone around her. But more importantly, I couldn't figure out the message of the miniseries. What was it trying to say? It is oddly pro-Brexit before Brexit happened with a bizarre streak of British exceptionalism. Also Ros's Purple party is almost all women, is this a commentary on women in traditional male roles and how they succeed or fail based on how much of the traditional female roles they're willing to give up, like motherhood? Also, while this was obviously written about a fake election it seems prophetic. I mean, look what we're living through here in the States! A person entirely ignorant of government being elected to the highest position in the land. Again! But in reality there have tons and tons of deaths and concentration camps instead of everyone banding together and riding a bus. So yeah... it now cuts a little too close to the bone... The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard just doesn't understand the implications of what it's attempting and failing to say. 
