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all the costume drama
May. 17th, 2015 11:12 pm...in short form.
I have seen the first part of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and it is good. ( not very spoilery under the cut, mostly about casting )
Last night I watched the first two episodes of 1864, which is about that time that Denmark went to war with Prussia about Schleswig-Holstein. It is so far rather slow and stagy, and the main character is a Free-Thinking Young Lady whose opinions are Ahead of Her Time. This is not a character type I like in my historical dramas, I fear. A and I joked that it would be Gone With the Wind but without all the racism, but sadly it also lacks Scarlett O'Hara, who is the thing that makes GWTW great. (What A said after the first episode was that it felt a bit like (modern) Denmark was having WWI envy. I am pretty sure some character said something about it being impossible to understand how hellish the trenches were, and that was when we were still in the 1850s.)
On the subject of major commemorative dramas, the BBC made one last year about nurses in WWI which was absolutely dreadful (it also had a Free-Thinking Young Lady, who was surrounded on all sides by Walking Cliches.) But Anzac Girls, the Australia & New Zealand contribution to the genre, has been much more entertaining -- to some extent the nurses are still walking cliches, but less so, and at least they mostly seem like they actually belong in the period.
So the gaping hole in my TV schedule caused by the end of Poldark can be filled. Although I think that unless they've changed the book rather a lot, there will me significantly less topless reaping in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
I have seen the first part of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and it is good. ( not very spoilery under the cut, mostly about casting )
Last night I watched the first two episodes of 1864, which is about that time that Denmark went to war with Prussia about Schleswig-Holstein. It is so far rather slow and stagy, and the main character is a Free-Thinking Young Lady whose opinions are Ahead of Her Time. This is not a character type I like in my historical dramas, I fear. A and I joked that it would be Gone With the Wind but without all the racism, but sadly it also lacks Scarlett O'Hara, who is the thing that makes GWTW great. (What A said after the first episode was that it felt a bit like (modern) Denmark was having WWI envy. I am pretty sure some character said something about it being impossible to understand how hellish the trenches were, and that was when we were still in the 1850s.)
On the subject of major commemorative dramas, the BBC made one last year about nurses in WWI which was absolutely dreadful (it also had a Free-Thinking Young Lady, who was surrounded on all sides by Walking Cliches.) But Anzac Girls, the Australia & New Zealand contribution to the genre, has been much more entertaining -- to some extent the nurses are still walking cliches, but less so, and at least they mostly seem like they actually belong in the period.
So the gaping hole in my TV schedule caused by the end of Poldark can be filled. Although I think that unless they've changed the book rather a lot, there will me significantly less topless reaping in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
