I don't get why these recent series have to be so short - Sherlock, the sublime Garrow's Law, Upstairs Downstairs, etc.
Surely, the largest part of a programme's budget is spent on the initial hiring of actors and crew, building a set, making costumes, and so on. So shooting a few more episodes isn't going to add much more to the budget, is it? Or am I being very ignorant?
I found Lark Rise to Candleford boring as well, Janey.
If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
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silverwhistle
13 years ago
It's the amount of time you have to keep everyone employed for, too.
But they keep all sorts of junk going for years.
Mind, Larkrise would have been better if they'd kept it shorter, stuck to the book and not turned it into a soap-y long-running series. I didn't bother with it at all.
I watch very little TV, and it's disappointing when the things I do want to see get compressed to excess, as SR did.
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Flossieandflo
13 years ago
Couldn't agree more with janey and everyone else, I'm not one for 'Larkrise' myself yet on and on it goes.
The BBC do seem to have a lack of faith in their period dramas these days, 'Upstairs downstairs' was raced through at a rate of knots and it showed in the lack of full characterisation IMO. I have read on the 'Up down' site that following critical reviews the BBC have chopped the next series from 10 (plus) to 6, quoting an 'insider'. It all indicates a lack of confidence
'South Riding' was good - but I think with less condensing it could have been so much better.
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silverwhistle
13 years ago
'South Riding' was good - but I think with less condensing it could have been so much better.
Especially given that it's an established literary classic, which has been done more fully in the past.
I can understand streamlining a book for dramatic purposes: some of the subplots and minor characters, although loved, are not essential to the main body of the novel, and are there to amplify themes that are already present. But this was boiled down too much. (Although, as I continually tell myself, nothing is as bad as the 1938 film in terms of condensing and mangling... I hope Winifred haunted the scriptwriter for that one!)
Seingner Conrat, tot per vostr'amor chan
http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk/knightlife
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oakcourt
13 years ago
Couldn't agree more with everyone on here. Didn't watch Lark Rise didn't fancy it and couldn't get into the book, same with Cranford. Oh btw I did watch North and South but well after I had read and really loved the book. I so wanted Richard Armitage to be totally crap as John Thornton but he was very decent as him.
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