Count me among those who resented that several interesting relationships were, to say the least, left on the back burner or nipped in the bud, to mix metaphors in a really awful way.
SPOILER ALERT
It's entirely in keeping with Gaskell's actual plot that Frank and Sophy should wind up together, though the casting/script in Cranford kind of laid on the convention a little thick -- i.e., handsome blond couple going off together at the end, as though it were all a fairy tale.
But I had been rooting for Miss Matty and Mr. Holbrook, and we all know how that ended. And somehow worse, look what they did to poor Mr. Carter just when he and Miss Galindo were starting to get along!
I did, however, like the implication that Mrs. Rose was about to be snapped up by the more age-appropriate Dr. Morgan, who at least had the decency to appreciate her makeover (Eat your hearts out, Stacy and Clinton!).
Jack Marshland and Mary Smith ought to have been a couple as well, and Jack's got a decided gleam in his eye by the end of the series, even if Mary had earlier proved resistant to her stepmother's attempts to marry her off. But what really seals the deal for me is Mary's reading the Riot Act to Jack over his prank on poor Frank. She's definitely more attracted to "that Irishman" than she's letting on.
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hobbitfan-2
14 years ago
I actually sort of liked the open-endedness of things. One of my favourite things about the series was that it was actually far more realistic than most Victorian-era stories; i.e. things happened somewhat randomly as they would in life, even when the plot seemed to be leading elsewhere (like Miss Deborah dying in only the second episode, or Mr. Harrison failing to save little Walter's life, or Mr. Carter chuffing it before he could romance Miss Galindo--which totally killed me, too). And I appreciated that Mary was so unlike your usual heroine who needs be married off by the end in order for her story to be complete (Sophy Hutton basically filled that role).
All that said, of course, I do totally want her to get it on with Dr. Marshland at Christmas. I am a romantic at heart ;)
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liberalmedia
14 years ago
Now that I've read a bit of Elizabeth Gaskell and seen episode one of the 2009 sequel to the 2007 series, I can see a bit where they followed her stories to the letter (e.g., regarding the fates of Mr. Holbrook and young Walter Hutton), where they've departed from them (BIG changes in the story lines for both Lady Ludlow and Captain Brown), and which they've excluded entirely.
Complicating things is this business of having to blend three books, Cranford, My Lady Ludlow, and Mr. Harrison's Confessions. Some characters have been renamed, some blended, and some reworked.
Bringing us back to Miss Mary Smith and Dr. Jack Marshland, I can report that the former is a combination of the Mary character in Cranford and Jemima Bullock in Mr. Harrison's Confessions, and that the script includes some things, leaves out others, and embellishes a few more. But you'll have to read the books to find out what Gaskell wanted you to know -- and not a bit more!
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