Season 53 - Tom Jones (2023)
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 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.
Wives and Daughters is the most nearly perfect miniseries that exists that I can not watch. Based on Elizabeth Gaskell's unfinished novel of the same name it is a perfect compromise between fans of Austen and the Brontës. Because the world sucks and feels the need to always pit women against each other, for the longest time you had to identify as either an Austen fan or a Brontës fan, you just couldn't be both. Which is bullshit and where Gaskell enters the frame. She's like Austen with politics or the Brontës with more balls. She revels in a happy ending and social satire, much like Austen, but unlike Austen she deals with weightier subjects and, like her friend Charlotte Brontë, is willing to go a bit broody and bleak when the story requires it. In simpler terms, she's totally willing to kill characters that you love and have no regrets about it. Which is why I have such a problem watching this miniseries almost to the point I just can not watch it. Which pains me because I love it so very much. The thing is, I am perfectly comfortable watching Tom Hollander die over and over again. I even once had to watch Tom Hiddleston do the dirty deed. What I can't handle is Michael Gambon's reaction to Tom Hollander's death. Hollander is after all playing Gambon's eldest son. It is, to me, the most accurate portrayal of grief I have ever seen and it just rips open my very soul. Just even thinking about it makes my heart hurt. And this annoys me all the more because I didn't much care for Hollander's character, but he was so beautifully acted and pathetic and poignant. But where there is love, there is pain. And Wives and Daughters is probably the closest Gaskell ever got to writing a straight-up love story. Sure, she does go on about the inter-dynamics of mixing a family, but in the end, it's the love of two characters, Roger and Molly, that makes this perhaps the best miniseries I have ever seen. Even more than Andrew Davies's other beloved adaptation, Pride and Prejudice, this broke and mended my heart a hundred times over and left me nearly satisfied. For some reason Davies decided to focus on the fact that Roger's first love with Molly's stepsister, Cynthia, was more about attraction, whereas the love between Roger and Molly was more a meeting of the minds and companionship and mutual respect. I feel that they are soul mates, and in need of a good snog, thank you very much. True love wins the day, so let the curtain close on a kiss. And right there is why this is only nearly perfect. Because Roger and Molly never kiss. They have their HEA, the times, they are a changing, and yet, there is no true satisfaction. I don't know if this is because Andrew Davies had to create the ending himself. Usually left to his own devices he brings something to a miniseries that otherwise would be lacking, I'm thinking in particular of the songs in Tipping the Velvet, which also starred Keeley Hawes. Here he's so close. The proposal, the rain, the admission of love, and then the lack of a kiss. It just doesn't work. Which is why it's best I don't watch this miniseries. It angers and destroys me in equal measure.
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 Lily of Ludgate Hill by Mimi Matthews
The Lady Thief of Belgravia by Allison Grey
Always Remember by Mary Balogh
When the Viscount Wanted Me by Lydia Lloyd
Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa
Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
Escaping Mr. Rochester by L.L. McKinney
The Search Party by Hannah Richell
The Night of the Storm by Nishita Parekh
A Place for Vanishing by Ann Fraistat
The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen edited by Ellen Datlow
Murder in the Alps by Sara Rosett
The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino
Seed on the Wind by Rex Stout
Death in the Dark Woods by Annelise Ryan
Cyanide and Sensibility by Katie Oliver
The Stage Kiss by Amelia Jones
Back in the before times, 2019 to be exact, someone, and I wish I could remember who so I could profusely thank them, asked me if I had read Jacey Bedford's Rowankind series. I had not and promptly bought the first book, Winterwood. And then the weirdest thing happened, Jacey Bedford emailed me. This never happens. This weird synchronicity where you buy a book and then out of nowhere the author emails you. Well I had magic to thank for that,
Regency Magic! Jacey had heard about Regency Magic from 
Question: When did you first discover Jane Austen?
Question: Where do you get your inspiration from?
Question: What makes the early 19th century mesh so well with magic?
Question: If you had to choose between writing only period literature or only fantasy literature, which would win?
I started my blog in May of 2009. In the early days it was a haphazard affair. I didn't really have any theme other than, this is what's going on in my head at the moment; here's a TV show I'm watching, what about this book everyone loves that I hate, here's an actor whose awesome and would be perfect in an adaptation, you get the idea, in fact you can go back and read it if you wanted, I don't think I can cause of the cringe factor. I wasn't alone though, there seemed to be a lot of people doing book blogs that were a mishmash of ideas. The content creators of quite a few of them are still my friends but many blogs have gone by the wayside. Rest in peace book blogging craze of the late 2000s. There were quite a few authors who were debuting around that time and reaching out to the blogging community and they were getting a lot of buzz and Stephanie was one of them. Her debut, 
Question: When did you first discover Jane Austen?
Question: Where do you get your inspiration from?
Question: What makes the early 19th century mesh so well with magic?
Question: Be honest, have you ever dressed up in Regency clothes just to pretend for a moment you are in the past?
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas
Pride and Prejudice 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.
