the BBC's Great Expectations.

[prendrelemick]

Anyone else watching?

The Magwich / Pip scenes out on the Fen: Could be the best ever.

At the Forge: See above

Young Stella / Pip: - good casting, Pip was excellent.

Miss Havisham: Gillian Anderson has confidence to start slowly and build. I wasn't too sure at first - too young and good looking, but a great performance. Another BAFTA I think.

Old Pip: Too handsome not enough acting talent - "..and looking miserable - and.. Action!"

Old Stella: Not too sure yet. She doesn't catch the eye, but has a natural style, - big scenes yet to come.

Photography: Those Fens have never looked more dramatic. The big skies and silver waters are what yer wide screen telly is made for.

[Lokasenna]

I'm very much enjoying it. Miss Havisham is clearly the best thing about it: Anderson may really be too young for the role, but she makes up for it in spades with the quality of her performance. She brings to the fore just how insane the character is - this is not someone who is just an eccentric, but a dangerously unhinged and compellingly evil woman.

Ray Winstone is playing himself, as usual - though that's not a bad thing. I am slightly perplexed as to why he gets top billing. On the same note, I wonder why David Suchet, marvellous though he is, gets third billing..?

Yes, adult Pip is perhaps the most questionable casting decision. It comes to a pretty pass when a fellow is out-acted by the kid playing the child version of himself. He's also too much of a pretty-boy, I think. I wasn't really sold on Estella in the first episode, but she grew on me in the second.

The chap who plays Joe is excellent as well - a subtle but powerful performance. The cinematography, as you suggest, is fantastic - the scenery becomes a character in its own right.

I await tonight's episode with anticipation - let's hope the conclusion lives up to the opening!

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh it's good to see a positive response to this, we've 'taped' it so to speak, so we'll watch them all together or in two parts.

[Lokasenna]

Well, that was, for the most part, excellent. But I do have one gripe, and I suppose I should say SPOILER WARNING from here on out...

The ending. Now, Dickens actually wrote two ending for GE - I actually prefer the first ending (where Pip meets Estella on the street, and they acknowledge that they have grown up as a result of their mutual suffering), but the more popular second ending (where Pip meets Estella in the ruins of Satis House and they renew their friendship, with an extremely ambiguous hint about the possibility of romance in the future) is also excellent. The BBC decided to do neither of these, which to me rather ruined the whole message of the novel at the end. Instead, Estella inherits the joint fortunes of Bently Drummle and Miss Havisham, moves into Satis House (which does not get destroyed) and then Pip turns up, allowing the last scene to be a moment of tender romance between them.

This is rather wrongheaded on several levels. For a start, Satis House has to be destroyed - what it represents in the novel is an obstacle to the future, a place where time cannot move on. It would be totally out of keeping for Estella's character to go back there. Furthermore, the emphasis on Estella's newly inherited fortune and the implication that Pip is going to marry into that undermines the point that he has supposedly learnt that working for one's self is the best way of making a living.

I had wondered which of Dickens' endings they were going to use, but either would have been better than what they had. I'll admit, after an otherwise excellent adaptation, I found that ending disappointing. One of the few criticisms aimed at the series, by the TV critic of The Times, was that he felt that Sarah Phelps, the writer, thought she was more clever than Charles Dickens. I suspect this was so.

[Jack of Hearts]

Yeah, the second ending was pretty weak by comparison. But the point you mentioned, Lokasenna, this reader would challenge. Pip ends up making a modest but decent living when his expectations flounder. This seems mostly like a reflection upon the main theme of having such standards/expectations and the perils and damages one endures for having them, in the sense that Pip ended up letting go of them and was 'ok' in the end. The benefactor/free money aspect of it, in Jack of Hearts' reading of the novel, was simply something that fed into Pip's greater problem- it wasn't the cause of it. And when he ends up with a 'modest but decent wage,' this, to this reader, isn't a statement that one should work for oneself, but the end result/freedom Pip achieves when he relinquishes/runs course of the expectations and the holds they have on him.

Anyway, going to see if the BBC version is offered online. Curious now...






J

[prendrelemick]

I finally saw the last episode last night.

Over all it was good, but it went wrong in a couple of places. Having a model play Pip who was prettier than Estella but entirely wooden, was an unintentional joke running through the whole thing. This was ironic as the writer had stripped out all of the humour Dickens put in there, particularly with the characterisation of Joe, Wemick and Pips sister, even Pumblechook was dark. No one does funny ridiculous Characters like Dickens does, it is one of his main literary strengths.

It was Jack's version of Pips journey that the producers/writer was trying to get across, so you were hit over the head with the message again and again - I was not suprised to learn that Sarah Phelps cut her teeth writing for soaps where subtlety is not generally known.

The positives were Gillian Anderson and Ray Winstone. They knew what they were doing and did it well. Orlick and young Pip should get a mention, they were very good - in fact when Orlick was attacking Pip the elder with a hammer I wanted him to suceed and put him out of his misery.

The whole thing fell short of being great, a pity because with that first episode it came close.

EDIT: A quick look at Twitterland explains why the producers cast Douglas Booth as Pip. This one from a young lady, gives the gist:- "Mmm Douglas Booth! nom nom nom nom..."

[LitNetIsGreat]

Well we finally got around to watching this and watched all three in one go (we prefer to do that). I enjoyed it overall but certainly the last episode was clearly not as good as the first two, I found myself more in my books than watching at this point. I agree about the ending, but thought that this production wasn't going to end as Dickens originally intended, never mind.

I must confess though, I love the mood evoked by such Victorian adaptations of such novels. I love the feel of it all, it's escapism for me if I'm honest. Here for example: the gentleman's clubs, costumes, the horses on the streets, candles, open fires, roast beef and brandy, wenches and pies - I lap up all of the heavily romantised Victorian stuff - and I don't even like Dickens that much. It's great fun. Not a mobile or a Go Compare advert in sight. What more do you want?

[Emil Miller]

Well we finally got around to watching this and watched all three in one go (we prefer to do that). I enjoyed it overall but certainly the last episode was clearly not as good as the first two, I found myself more in my books than watching at this point. I agree about the ending, but thought that this production wasn't going to end as Dickens originally intended, never mind.

I must confess though, I love the mood evoked by such Victorian adaptations of such novels. I love the feel of it all, it's escapism for me if I'm honest. Here for example: the gentleman's clubs, costumes, the horses on the streets, candles, open fires, roast beef and brandy, wenches and pies - I lap up all of the heavily romantised Victorian stuff - and I don't even like Dickens that much. It's great fun. Not a mobile or a Go Compare advert in sight. What more do you want?

A lot to choose from there Neely but I'll take the gentlemen's clubs, brandy and wenches. And just to get you started on a happy New Year:

http://youtu.be/Y95KD4cQh6c


EDIT: I've just been reading some of the hilarious comments, here's one of the more printable ones: "quality mate. Yeah incredibly I heard their business went up by 20% since these ultra annoying ads started. Makes you lose complete faith in society and ashamed to be british."
VirgLondon2 1 year ago

[LitNetIsGreat]

A lot to choose from there Neely but I'll take the gentlemen's clubs, brandy and wenches. And just to get you started on a happy New Year:

http://youtu.be/Y95KD4cQh6c


EDIT: I've just been reading some of the hilarious comments, here's one of the more printable ones: "quality mate. Yeah incredibly I heard their business went up by 20% since these ultra annoying ads started. Makes you lose complete faith in society and ashamed to be british."
VirgLondon2 1 year ago

Brilliant! I am at peace...The comments are great too.

[prendrelemick]

Edwin Drood next, Starting January the 10th. I wonder what ending they'll stick on to that one, or will they just leave it unfinished.

[kiki1982]

I knew that something was wrong from the moment that Miss Havesham didn't burn the whole place down... Firstly it didn't feel logical for the 19th century - how many houses burned down just because of the Christmas tree candles? They banned any candles in Christmas trees before Christmas Eve just for that reason - and secondly I felt it lacking in message, you can feel that...

Anyway, the very first scenes were really good and my hubby and I would like to take a look at that spot in Essex. That's positive anyway...

Did anyone else feel the last episode was a bit rushed?

Why can they never leave things alone?

[Emil Miller]

Why can they never leave things alone?

The English have a long tradition of not leaving things alone. It's called busy bodying.

[Jack of Hearts]

Even though the actress did great, it was a bad casting decision (physically) for Miss Havisham. Young Pip carried his weight and then some.

A couple interesting decisions were made in terms of writing the script- who could envy that job? The novel bounces back and forth between locations sporadically, events are written in almost arbitrarily because it was serialized first (Pip's fistfight with Herbert Pocket specifically comes to mind; in the novel it's very strange and dreamlike, purely for readership/interest purposes and evolved upon haphazardly later, and there are many more examples. And a script has to make sense out of that, offer a more cohesive narrative than perhaps the novel did!).

Anyways, it was still good TV.






J

[prendrelemick]

I'm glad you got to see it.

Perhaps Gillian Anderson was a risk as Miss Havisham, but one that paid off. It was a pleasure to see someone not doing the scary old crone.

Thinking about it, heiresses were married off around the age of 18, so if she was jilted 15 years before Pip met her she would only be 33, and mid 40s when she died. I know Dickens described her as yellowed, but she hadn't been looking after herself.

As to that Fist fight that was another lost comedy moment, young Pockets was supposed to be a silly posh boy - not a upper class bully.

[prendrelemick]

I'm glad you got to see it.

Perhaps Gillian Anderson was a risk as Miss Haversham, but one that paid off. It was a pleasure to see someone not doing the scary old crone.

Thinking about it, heiresses were married off around the age of 18, so if she was jilted 15 years before Pip met her she would only be 33, and mid 40s when she died. I know Dickens described her as yellowed, but she hadn't been looking after herself.

As to that Fist fight that was another lost comedy moment, young Pockets was supposed to be a silly posh boy - not a upper class bully.