Historical Drama

Flambards

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Beloved Mini-Series from the Olden Days.

I don’t remember how this old series from 1979 came to my attention-probably it was praised on one of the Facebook sites I frequent dealing with period drama or British series and shows. After I read the glowing to hyperbolic reviews, I was thrilled to find it at my library. I did enjoy it. It was very good. I loved the time period depicted-1909 to 1918-what a watershed period of history! So much going on.

We follow the likable, plucky, if a little barmy Christina as she is deposited at Flambards-a debt-ridden estate owned by her brutish and bitter uncle. By the bye, his hairstyle makes him look like the Devil. I wonder if that was intended.

Watch Flambards Online | Season 1 (1980) | TV Guide
Uncle Russell

 He has two sons. The handsome older brother, Mark, is equally brutish and as horse-mad as his father, and the youngest, William, is the complete antithesis of both of them: brilliant, forward-thinking, ambitious, hard-working, and kind. He couldn’t care less about horses, in fact he hates and fears them after an accident that left him a little lame. His passion is airplanes. He is continually treated with harshness and injustice by his brother and father, but he could not care less. I loved William. His father is no father to him, so he finds a substitute: An older gentleman who is his friend and mentor to his aeronautical ambitions. Christina and William become great friends even though she still gets on with Mark and his father most of the time, due to her own love of horses. William tells her right off the bat, by way of a warning,  that she is meant to marry Mark for her fortune so he and Uncle can buy more horses and continue their aristocratic and wasteful lifestyle. Pay their debts? Develop their land? Restore the estate? Invest in the future? Please.  Thanks to William, Christina has their number right away, and together William and she are an unbeatable team. They are adventurous, brave, and dauntless.

This approximately 12 hour series is divided into 3 parts. The first part ends with Christina and William escaping to London so William can follow his dreams but not before Christina carries on a flirtation with a devoted stable-hand and gets him fired by involving him in her desperate scheme to save her beloved horse from being slaughtered. Admittedly a noble cause, but still. Christina is impulsive but has good instincts. The second section involves their London adventures with William trying to break in to the airplane industry and their close friendship with a like-minded young couple. They are a fearsome foursome, if you will. WWI breaks out and William joins up and becomes a pilot.

In the last section, the resilient Christina takes over Flambards, determined to repair years of neglect, and bring it in to the 20th century. She is reunited with an old friend, and again has to deal with troublesome Mark who returns from the still on-going war.

Although tragedy and tough times are certainly part of Christina’s journey, overall, It remains upbeat and optimistic from first episode to last. I think this is because it is based on a trilogy of books aimed at young teens. Serious issues are addressed, bad things happen, but we soon realize that we are not going to be thrown to the wolves, so to speak. To add to the appeal we are treated to more than two nice love stories. Always a big plus. The strange musical score by David Fanshawe, I did not like or understand. But I can’t get it out of my head. **8 stars out of 10**

Rating: 8 out of 10.

May 21, 2021

The Tide of Life

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Typical Cookson but Gillian Kearney is a Shining Star

**spoilers**

This Cookson melodrama was marginally more bearable than many I have seen due to the presence of Gillian Kearney, who plays our heroine, Emily. She was adorable. Unfortunately, her character puts up with way too much from her abusive lover who beats her, steals from her, cheats on her, refuses to marry her, lies to her, etc. Why? Why? Why? As is far too usual in a Cookson pot-boiler, this farmer, who married for money, and then was cut out of any rights to his dead wife’s property, starts off as a really good guy. Luckily, the actual good guy turns up in the last 45 minutes, cleverly disguised as a questionable sort. He is an ex-con who was imprisoned for murder in America and the first and only true husband of Emily’s dead employer and our farmer’s dead wife. Cookson’s heroines are just too Thomas Hardy for me. A little buffeting by fate is fine, to get things going, but not all the way through the whole dang story without relief or a little self- determination.**6 stars out of 10**

Rating: 6 out of 10.

June 22, 2017

The Girl

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Too Much Badness

I guess the Catherine Cookson model for historical dramas just does not float my boat. This was somewhat entertaining, but I just don’t like all of the sorrow, suffering, and angst in my dramas. Her stories are just dark all the way through. Even when people are happy, there is some fly in the ointment. I do not mind some darkness in my dramas: I loved Little Dorrit, and Middlemarch for example. I love the series based on Elizabeth Gaskell novels. Loved Downton Abbey. These are just humorless. And boy there is a ton of them. I think I have seen enough to know I don’t want to suffer through anymore of these to find the ones that I do like. I did like The Rag Nymph, and The Glass Virgin back in the day. Not sure why, but they were different in some way while still being the same basic plot. I suspect it was the actors and the characters they played. **6 out of 10**

Rating: 6 out of 10.

June 21, 2017

Tilly Trotter

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Not My Cup of Tea

****Major Spoilers**** not only for this drama but for the trilogy of books.***** I have enjoyed other mini-series based on Catharine Cookson’s melodramas, but I guess Tilly Trotter just was not my cuppa. I liked the Tilly character: she was strong and good. But the men in her life were head swiveling-ly weak and unreliable. Her first love, the farmer, is dumber than dirt to begin with but a very good kind person. Then, when he is finally free of his unhappy marriage out of the blue, we learn in the last episode, we see him nailing the county nymphomaniac. In the barn. Instead of finding Tilly. Now, I understand, reading about the trilogy of novels, that he ends up being her enemy and a really bad guy.

Luckily, the 2 sequels were not made into movies, because, indeed, some pretty upsetting things happen there. She ends up marrying one of the children she was governess to? Hello, Mary LeTourneau? No. Just no. No wonder they stopped at the first novel. I’m not even going to start on the detour to Texas.

The man she ends up with in this drama gets set up as the bad guy by yelling at his boisterous children and having an affair. We hardly can blame him when we learn more about his evil wife. Tilly saves his life in the mine, and he becomes a good guy once he is permanently crippled and amputated. His wife leaves him, and he basically lets her take the children with her without fighting for them. Given the rights of mothers and women back then, he had a good chance of winning custody. Then he mopes about it throughout the rest of the movie. He is a great father when they visit him, but he never gets the kids back and his wife never gets her comeuppance. Their mother and their grandmother were just left to warp those poor kids, practically with the blessing of our hero and heroine.

Then we have the ending. After her childhood crush disappoints her she immediately decides to become her employer’s mistress. She gets in his bed, and the whole series ends. Just like that. Although Tilly Trotter ends on a positive note, there is little hope for a long-term happy future. By taking her as his mistress, (and in the books, getting her pregnant,) he will ruin her reputation and doom her to bad times ahead. I don’t mind tragedy, melodrama, or death in my historical dramas. Really, I don’t. But I like my heroes to be either redeemed or strong and good all the way through. They can be flawed, but their other positive character traits or good actions must vastly outweigh the bad. And I like my heroines to end up with happy secure futures. I like my villains to get justice. I like closure. Call me crazy. **4 out 10 stars**

Rating: 4 out of 10.

July 16, 2017

Anne of Green Gables

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2016 PBS Production

Dreadful.

This version of Anne of Green Gables was absolutely dire. Where do I begin? Right off the bat, when I knew I was doomed to disappointment, Martin Sheen playing the soulful shy Matthew as if he was some kind of slapstick comic. Yakitty Yakkity Yak to his horse, and then falling face first into a mud puddle. SMH. Too bad, because the scene on the train was actually quite promising. I thought Martin Sheen was a good actor and was willing to give him a chance, but this was disgraceful. It was probably the direction.

The young actress who played Anne, delivered her lines. Period. Whenever a line came close to echoing a line Megan Follows said, the contrast would have been laughable if it weren’t so inept. One of the pivotal comic scenes, (Anne’s “apology” to Rachel after her rude behavior) took place in a wide shot and without audible dialogue. It was probably a mercy. She wasn’t helped by the freckles put on with a pencil that kept appearing and disappearing, and that dye job on her hair! When she got into the sunlight, it looked like something a cheap tart would do to her hair. Again, probably the direction rather than the young actresses fault.

Any production has a tough row to hoe to even come close to the perfection that was The Sullivan Production. That whole cast was perfection itself and truly inhabited their roles. I won’t talk about the lack of depth. The whole Minnie May episode, I swear, clocked in at under a minute and that included the reconciliation scene. And “Matthew” continually on the verge of a heart attack. I guess stay tuned for the next installment. The Actor who played Gilbert looked younger than Anne and came across as a bratty little brother. The actress who played Marilla actually was not bad, though not the same character that Colleen Dewhurst interpreted. And Rachel was also excellent. The little actress who played Diana was a bright spot, as little screen time as she had. Again, no depth. And miscasting. She should have played Anne. There will probably be a second installment to this as many of the key scenes were left out entirely (no Lily Maid of Astalat. No Miss Stacy.) If they recast an older Anne and Gilbert, and kill Matthew off quickly, it might have a chance to be halfway decent.

There is hope. The early 1930’s version with Dawn O’Day (Anne Shirley), Tom Brown, and Helen Westley was a wonder and showed that you could convey the charm of this story in 78 minutes flat, and even manage to include a satisfying romance between Anne and Gilbert. **2 stars out of 10**

Rating: 2 out of 10.

November 25, 2016

Little Women

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Gives the 1994 Production a Run for its Money!

I was surprised and delighted by this 1978 TV miniseries. Shocked, more like it. One of my favorite authors commented in a blog that this miniseries had a huge influence on her as a writer. (I was intrigued by this statement and got it out from the library.) I didn’t expect much considering the sit-com actresses cast in the key roles, not to mention William Shatner as Professor Bhaer. But much to my satisfaction and bemusement, they all did their roles proud. A special shout out to Eve Plumb, as Beth. She was very affecting. Her death was handled with grace, and even beauty. Equally surprising was William Shatner, who was very appealing in the role, tamping down, as he did, his habitual bombastic style. Needless to say, the luminous Dorothy McGuire was a perfect Marmee. And the great Greer Garson added an extra dimension to her Aunt March. The writing was fantastic: sensitive and delicate in places, and very faithful to the book. Due to the miniseries format, it included more of the book’s content and was leisurely paced though it never dragged. The 1994 Winona Ryder led film has always been my favorite, and probably will continue to be, but this one came very very close, and in some ways, surpassed it, in my view.**9 out of 10 stars**

Rating: 9 out of 10.

February 1, 2016