Season 37 - The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2007)
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.
When I went looking for shows to fill in the gaps of my Masterpiece Theatre knowledge accessibility was the prime directive. Could I actually find it to watch. So many of the shows aren't on streaming and many of those that were released on DVD are now out of print, so I've been relying heavily on eBay, a habit my wallet doesn't like. And I won't deny that the nineteenth season had an obvious choice in Traffik, because it's one of the most famous series from Masterpiece Theatre and it went on to be adapted into the Oscar winning film by Steven Soderbergh. But then I saw that The Dressmaker was on Amazon. I literally knew nothing about it going in other than it has a small yet stellar cast in Dame Joan Plowright, Billie Whitelaw, Pete Postlewaite, and a painfully young Jane Horrocks. The story itself is rather simple, Jane Horrocks plays Rita, a young girl raised by her aunts who finally gets asked to her first party, a bit of a do for the American GIs who have come to Liverpool. There she meets Wesley, who, as their relationship progresses, wants to move faster than Rita is comfortable with. He plays cruelly with her heart, not showing up for dates, refusing to call her. The most romantic thing he ever said to her is that she looked like a drowned rat. Eventually he's brought round to meet the aunts and he takes a real shine to Margo played by Billie Whitelaw. She instantly knows that this boy is after one thing and one thing only and is nowhere good enough for their Rita. Sadly for Rita, her heart is going to be broken. Now the handling of World War II is a bit like if the writers from Riverdale decided to take a stab at it, with laughable brawls between the Yanks and the Brits, but thankfully this is the backdrop, not the bones of The Dressmaker. The bones are the family unit; Aunts Nellie and Margo, Rita and her dad Jack. The way they bicker and carry on, it's comedic gold. This alone would have made it a good little movie, but the ending, oh, the ending takes it to a whole other level. I don't want to spoil it, I so don't, but I will say, the triumph on Joan Plowright's face as she stands atop the staircase would be worthy of Damehood if she wasn't one already! 
