Season 35 - Bleak House (2005-2006)
The Gillian Anderson version of Bleak House first aired as I was just getting back into Masterpiece. It's not that I'd taken time out from the show per se, it's just that life, combined with school meant that several seasons of Masterpiece were seen by me after the fact when my friend Jess would tell me to rent a specific show from Netflix. Yes, this was when Netflix was still only discs you sent away for. So I'd often spend the summer vacation watching the notable shows that had aired on Masterpiece earlier in the year and had now been released on DVD. The other reason I got back into Masterpiece was perfect timing. I could never watch the eight o'clock broadcast because other family members had the television at the time and for some reason our second PBS station decided to re-air that night's episode of Masterpiece starting around midnight. That meant I could finally curl up with my cat and be assured we wouldn't be accused of co-opting the television. So I settled in to watch Bleak House. The fifteen episode miniseries actually aired as eight on Masterpiece, so for eight weeks I was there for all the twists, turns, and explosive reveals of the people connected to the Jarndyce v Jarndyce case. And I kind of found it meh. I wasn't good at following the plot from week to week and just kind of forgot about it. Until I made a list of suggested viewings for a friend of my mom's and well, Nancy was VERY mad I didn't like Bleak House. Apparently it was her favorite. Therefore I had to give it another try. And yet she wouldn't give Poldark a second try!?! Just saying... So I sat down and watched all of Bleak House over three nights and you know what? I really liked it. I knew what was going to happen more or less so I was able to take joy in the characters, which is what this adaptation is all about. SHAKE ME UP JUDY! Also, Bleak House works better, in my mind, binged. Watching it over too long a period of time doesn't work. We are no longer in the age when we had to wait months for Dickens to actually write the next chapter, so why wait? That's right, why wait? Go watch Bleak House today. All of it!
Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo
Bone Crier's Dawn by Kathryn Purdie
John Updike: Novels 1978-1984 by John Updike 
The Ultimate Sherlock Holmes Puzzle Book by Pierre Berloquin
Murder at Wedgefield Manor by Erica Ruth Neubauer
Wild Women and the Blues by Denny S. Bryce
There are only a handful of miniseries that I allow to be categorized as my favorites. They are sheer perfection and I return to them again and again because I love them so much. Wives and Daughters starring Keeley Hawes, Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth, The Forsyte Saga starring Damian Lewis, and a dozen more, these aren't just seminal to me, they made me who I am. As did Jane Eyre. This adaptation of Jane Eyre starring Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson will forever be the best adaptation of a Bronte book. Period. I came to Jane Eyre's story by such a roundabout route, watching different adaptations over the years on cable while never picking up the book. Ironically my first literary experience of the world created by Charlotte was actually in Jasper Fforde's book 
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've just lived through here in the States! A person entirely ignorant of government being elected to the highest position in the land. But in reality there were tons and tons of deaths 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. 
The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear
The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers
Karolina and the Torn Curtain by Maryla Szymiczkowa
Finding My Voice by Nadiya Hussain
I unabashedly adore Northanger Abbey. This is something that took me quite a long time to discover. I had actually never re-read Northanger Abbey after first reading it right after high school when I was too naive to get the Gothic parody aspect and therefore ranked it as Austen's worst novel. Older, and hopefully wiser, I reevaluted the novel and adored it for it's humor. And as for Henry Tilney? He instantly became my favorite Austen hero. Why? Because he is a fully rounded character, not some ideal. He has a sense of humor, he loves to read, and well, he's not perfect and somehow that makes him perfect. Which brings me to the masterful portrayal of Henry Tilney by J.J. Feild. In fact, I'm sure that my reconsideration of Henry was in no small part helped by J.J. There's only so much a book can do until you can affix a visual to a character, which is why I often dream cast books as I read them. I couldn't have done better than J.J. for Henry Tilney. The humor? The arch looks? He's perfection. He nails the comedy but he can combine it with pathos and stern censor yet all coming from the heart. He became my heartthrob. I've watched everything he's been in since, yes, even Captain America. I even tried my hardest to like TURN with his little rat tail, but even he couldn't elevate that show. But while I'll always point to Northanger Abbey as the true beginning of my crush, the zenith is 
The thing about Wuthering Heights is I always really want to like it but never do. I've seen more adaptations than I can count all hoping that one would strike a cord in me. I chased down old productions for actors I liked just in the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, having say, Matthew Macfadyen in it would improve it. He did not. Hell, he didn't even speak as far as I can remember. In fact the introduction on that old VHS tape from the library was more interesting than the production itself. Thank you Russell Baker for explaining exactly why I hated the Laurence Olivier one so much! Most of the novel was cast aside in favor of a "happy" ending for the 1939 film. Yes. They tried to make Wuthering Heights have a happy ending! The mind boggles. Therefore I didn't have much hope for this new version staring that guy who was good in The Virgin Queen, that guy from The Walking Dead and Love Actually (a film I detest), and Owen from Torchwood. And yes, this is exactly how I categorized it in my head. Well, my lack of expectations led me, late one Sunday night, to find the first version of Wuthering Heights I enjoyed. No, enjoyed is too milquetoast, I was enraptured by it. Yes, it has a grim beginning with Tom Hardy as Heathcliff disinterring Catherine's skeleton while wearing a really bad wig, Tom, not the skeleton. But as I'm sure everyone else who's seen Tom Hardy act will agree, there's just something so magnetic about him, you can't look away. He became Heathcliff. What's more, Charlotte Riley was so perfectly cast as Catherine that she and Tom fell in love. You can feel their attraction through the screen. This is real. This is emotional. This is what Catherine and Heathcliff should always be. That heat, that passion, that tragedy. Thankfully in real life they are living a happily ever after and Tom isn't out back digging a grave where he will later cradle her corpse. But this didn't just become my all time favorite Wuthering Heights adaptation, if forever made me fans of Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley, who while perfection in this, are even better in Taboo and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell respectively.
Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs
