Later Episodes

Ahoy there!

I have been trying to figure out just where IMDB has the final episodes of Bramwell listed (It was unclear due to the two different ways the series is listed), and so I've only just found your post.

I couldn't agree with you more than the final episodes were an abomination. It was as though the script writer was determined to alienate every last fan of the series by shoving Eleanor into what was basically out-of-character behavior and mate her to a thoroughly detestable man, and have her turn her back on her life's work. What became of all her principles, her passion? It was all unceremoniously chucked.

It would have actually been a better and more believable ending if Eleanor had remained a single woman and a physician (though there was the matter of her pregnancy...). Again, I'm mystified as to why the series ended with a great big middle finger displayed to the audience.

I totally agree. I adored this series until the 4th one and your just thinking "Is this the same character?" Eleanor would have never gone back to that horrid Army man and had sex in a fit of passion that she knew could possibly get her pregnant and trap her into the life that she rejected from him in the first season!
Why would she thought that would have changed. I can see wrapping up the series for her getting married, having a kid or whatever, but it just seemed like it abandoned her ideals and character that we all came to love about her. So disaapointed! I think I'll just do like I did with the last North and South season and just pretend it doesn't exist.

chiming in late here ... can't agree more with what previous posters have said. The change in the final installments were utterly bizarre, and they did seem calculated to betray the characters and the audience.

I have just watched these episodes and I agree. The show had a completely different character and feel. Maybe the writers wanted to reflect the changing times, and the fact that a new, exciting century was upon us (the Boer War ran from 1899 - 1902) but I found it all rather bemusing. The ending, with Eleanor's professional failure and expedient marriage, was flat and disappointing.

The absence of Robert, Alice, Kate and Sydney was key, in that I don't think that even the strongest show can cope with such a significant cast change.

I also didn't understand how Eleanor could be vulnerable enough to be sacked (presumably, an intelligent woman such as she would never have handed over that amount of power to Mrs Bruce when the latter joined the venture) and why the juvenile prostitution incident made such an impact; surely an East End doctor would have become accustomed to seeing underage callgirls over a 4 year period? And all of them would have been sent away eventually. I disliked the way in which Eleanor was portrayed as fragile and unfocused.

That said, it would be very interesting if the show were to be reprised, with a WW1/1920s backdrop. Eleanor's offspring would be a young adult, so could be handed some strong war and Roaring Twenties storylines, with an ageing Eleanor trying to come to terms with the new order of things.

I agree that the camera techniques and lighting weredisconcerting in the last episodes. However, I do think that even a woman of Bramwell's pluck and determination can suddenly meet the eyes of a stranger and give up everything for that promise. David Bark-Jones was at his most beautiful moment here, and I certainly would have fallen for him. And even militant feminists can become tired of fighting the fight for everyone else. Her biological clock was stomping like Marisa Tomei's in My Cousin Vinny. Maybe as much as we hate it, biology is destiny.

And why did the Major loose his moustache in the last few scenes?