Season 9 - The Duchess of Duke Street Series 2 (1979-1980)
When the first proposed spin-off from Upstairs, Downstairs set in a boarding house run by Hudson and Mrs. Bridges, now Mrs. Hudson, had to be scrapped due to Angela Baddeley's death, John Hawksworth was apparently so stuck on the idea of doing a period show set in a residential hotel that we got The Duchess of Duke Street. Considered by most to be the natural successor to Upstairs, Downstairs, and I will fight anyone who tries to say, "what about Thomas and Sarah?" Because that show was a piece of shit and you know it! Based on the life of the Duchess of Jermyn Street, Rosa Lewis, who rose from humble cook to hotel owner, The Duchess of Duke Street, while having a certain Upstairs, Downstairs vibe with the patrons and servants of the Bentinck Hotel has in my mind more humble heart than it's predecessor. Here everyone is a little mad, a little off kilter, a little rough around the edges, and that endeared me to each and every character. The elderly Merriman, who came with the property and is a house-elf in human form, the doorman Starr and his faithful pooch Fred, Mary, The Major, who while technically a guest is also technically staff, and Charlie, the young buck who was turned down only to become the money man and love interest of our erstwhile owner, Louisa Trotter! Louisa is rough and gruff and she knows what she wants and doesn't let anyone stand in her way, let alone an annoying husband. But while every episode is a wonderful little vignette of Louisa fighting against convention and making a place in the world for herself and her family series two has one of my favorite episodes of any show ever, "Winter Lament." By this point Charlie is married to the rather sweet but weak Margaret and is no longer living at the Bentinck. Instead he's taken up residence at the ancestral pile with his wife who is not well. He begs Louisa to come and help, but it's too late, Margaret is too far gone and this episode feels as if the Brontes came back to life to write a television show. It's just such a weird little bottle episode but it's perfect. In fact it's because of this that I ended up watching all of Dynasty because Christopher Cazenove who plays Charlie plays Ben on that eighties soap staple.
Survive the Night by Riley Sager
Black Ice by Carin Gerhardsen
Little Black Book by Kate Carlisle
Murder at Keyhaven Castle by Clara McKenna
The Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
The Return of the Sorceress by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Thérèse grew up beside her cousin Camille in his sickbed. When they were older it just made sense for her to stay in the bed and be his wife. She walks through her life in a daze. Nothing ever breaking through the monotony of her day to day existence with Camille and Madame Raquin. The shop bell below their home rings and customers must be served. Every Thursday their friends come over for tea and dominoes. Life plods on. Then one day Camille runs into his old childhood friend Laurent. Laurent's passion is painting, but sadly it can not support him so he's taken a mundane office job. But soon his passion is Thérèse. They begin a torrid affair resulting in the murder of Camille. This three part miniseries starts out rather sedately. The first episode is interesting but it isn't until the second episode, after the murderous denouement of the first, that it becomes something more, something memorable. Kate Nelligan as Thérèse and Brian Cox as Laurent fully embrace the over the top Gothic nature of the tale in such a way that they are mesmerizing. There's a feeling of the darker tales of Edgar Allan Poe when Laurent starts taking to visiting the morgue daily and having his dreams haunted by the dead. Also there's a wonderful unsettled feeling as to what Thérèse's motives were. Did she ever care for Laurent or was he just a means to get ride of her husband? Or did she really not know how her mind would unravel following Camille's death? The height of this is their frantic wedding night. They knew they could never just marry because then perhaps people would wonder what really happened to Camille. So instead, a year after their crime, they have finagled their Thursday night domino friends to insist that the two of them wed, and wed they are. But the haunted honeymoon to come is so deliciously Gothic it almost felt like the Brontes wrote it while taking acid. Laurent is haunted by the painting of Camille he executed that is hanging in the bedroom. He also keeps thinking he sees his dead friend's bloated corpse in their wedding bed. Thérèse is equally frantic. Soon they are beyond miserable, the three of them in the marriage, Thérèse, Laurent, and Camille. All this is happening behind their closed bedroom door while trying to maintain a happy facade for Madame Raquin. But soon that even cracks and tragedy besets tragedy until the scales are balanced.
I fully admit that the one and only reason I watched this miniseries was to see a young Giles. I might have a thing for Anthony Stewart Head, especially as Watcher and librarian on Buffy the Vampire Slayer... Therefore, over the years, I've tried to make sure I watch everything he's currently in and in my spare time watch his back catalog. Back in that catalog was this wonderful adaptation of Love in a Cold Climate, where just two years after appearing on Lillie he's back on the small screen as Tony Kroesig, the very minimally fictionalized Bryan Guinness. He's just simply adorable with his blonde hair rescuing a rabbit for his future wife who will bolt on him. He's just so perfectly cast and that's what makes this adaptation stand out for me. The cast was so fully rounded and actually felt like a family. Well, when Judi Dench signs on, even in the eighties she had pull, and well, everyone else just fell into place, even her real life husband Michael Williams joined as Davey Warbeck! See, a family! And as Tony's wife Linda is the wonderful Lucy Gutteridge, whom I adore as the love interest opposite Val Kilmer in Top Secret! and in Till We Meet Again, the miniseries I always call "the one where Hugh Grant's a Nazis!" And in an entirely random roll we have Anthony Higgins, Rathe from Young Sherlock Holmes, playing an over-the-top chef who doesn't speak English! I could go on and on, but just take my word for it, perfect casting. Also, seeing as until now, all adaptations named Love in a Cold Climate are actually adaptations of two of Nancy Mitford's books, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, crammed under the more memorably named book, we have a lot of ground to cover in one series. Unlike the one at the turn of the century which was only two episodes jammed together as one movie stateside, here we have eight episodes to luxuriate in the story. To get all the details right. And why is that important now? Because we have another adaptation on the way! So it's time to bring out the books, sit down and watch these two adaptations, and then see if this new version with Lily James is up to snuff or if she should have stayed away, like with Rebecca.
The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
My Contrary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows
The Ankh-Morpork Archives by Terry Pratchett 
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Finding My Voice by Nadiya Hussain
Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie
If you are watching this for Jeremy Brett, be forewarned that there is a lot less Jeremy Brett than the DVD cover would have you believe. This is a starring vehicle for Susan Fleetwood and Robin "OG Poldark" Ellis doing his best Morgan Freeman narration in the era before Morgan Freeman started being known as the go-to narrator and was known as that guy from The Electric Company and various soap operas. The Good Soldier is a tale of infidelity set against the backdrop of a German spa town revolving around two couples, the Dowells and the Ashburnhams. This adaptation leans heavily on the 1974 adaptation of 
My parents made it a habit that for the holidays they'd give me box sets of their favorite Masterpiece Theatre shows so that when I wanted to watch something they'd get to watch something they wanted to as well. One Christmas I got a gift "From Your Irish Friends." After me trying to guess what the present was and failing, it turned out to be season one of The Irish R.M. staring Peter Bowles. I feel bad that it's taken me about twenty years to finally get to this show, but it really needs to be taken into account how many shows are out there and how many shows Masterpiece Theatre did that I'm trying to catch up on. That is a hella big backlog people! On the scene we have a lot of my favorite actors, or I should say, Peter Bowles, but behind the scenes we have the whole crew from Upstairs, Downstairs, a classic if there ever was one! So I knew the show had rightly gained it's status as a classic in it's own right. Yet it did take me awhile to get into. The show deals with the clash of the very British Resident Magistrate with his very Irish neighbors who come before him in court and seek to manipulate him outside of it. My problem was that I felt the show's humor was at the expense of the Irish, and that made me feel a bit dirty. The Irish have always been the oppressed in any relationship with the British and the way jokes were set up to have the Irish use their humor and wiles to try to outwit their enemy felt too much like it was written by British writers to make fun of and further demean the Irish. Eventually they found the right balance where everyone was the butt of the joke, British and Irish alike, and with this the show found it's footing. It could also be that as time went on I started to love the characters and saw them less as the initial stereotypes they were set out to be and more as the individuals they were. But this has to do with the actors more than the writing in my opinion. In the end the show is a marvelous amalgam of All Creatures Great and Small and Father Ted. I defy anyone to argue that the R.M.'s housekeeper Mrs. Cadogan (which she insists is pronounced Mrs. Cadergorn) isn't the inspiration for Mrs. Doyle on Father Ted. They both so enjoy their misery.
Million Dollar Demon by Kim Harrison
Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury
The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson
The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
Unravelled Knots by Baroness Orczy
