... if it had been directed with some energy and humour.
It had a great cast (yes, even allowing for the ones we lost when they didn't return after the first series), but very little flair.
In my eyes, it really only just crawled over the line. What a pity.
Gotta agree with you and other posters who didn't like this as much as its predecessors. I recently watched all 3 pretty much back to back to back (now that I own them all on DVD) and noticed the decline from series to series to series. The first is still the best IMHO.
I do hope they get to make the rest of the books into miniseries (including Maupin's latest "Michael Tolliver Lives"), but I hope they don't continue to decrease the length (the first was 6 hrs, the second 5 hrs, the third was 3 hrs)--we deserve more time with these characters.
From what I heard there will be no more "Tales..." movies. After all it HAS been 9 years since the last one. I don't consider that a bad thing. Parts 1 and 2 were great. Well cast and very faithful to the books. Part 3 was a joke. The book was brutally edited, pointless new subplots were added and the cast just seems to be going through the motions. I remember this got plenty of negative reviews and Showtime never said a thing about doing a fourth one. If they DO have a fourth one they'll have to get a new cast. Whip Hubley who played Brian Hawkins in his 50s now!
shareI don't care if they get a new cast, as long as they do it right. We've had a cast change before, and it survived fairly well.
But 3 hours should be the absolute minimum for any new adaptation. I found More Tales dragged on too long, but Further Tales raced by too quick.