MovieChat Forums > The Crimson Field (2015) Discussion > It almost worked

It almost worked

posted 9 years ago by Tvfan2323
4 replies | jump to latest

Crimson Field almost worked as a show. It just got sucked into this weird need to cram about 20 different story lines into 6 episodes. And everyone needed to have some mysterious background. If they had only focused on the daily life and dynamics of a field hospital during WW1, I think it would have been a mild success. That being said I wish BBC had given it a second season, so they could have straightened out some of the problems. It could have been a much stronger show with more time.

The cast was excellent, but the writing was just too muddled. One of the best parts to me (and one of the more soapy elements) was the Kitty/Thomas romance. But did they need to give Kitty such an over the top background story? They could have kept it simple. She married a man that turned out to be a jerk. She had an affair, it went sideways, and the husband got a divorce , and she saw becoming a VAD as a way to start over. They didn't need to give her a young daughter she couldn't see, an uncaring mother, and a visit from the creepy ex-husband. You could have pulled out four seasons of a story line for Thomas and Kitty without pulling any huge soap strings -- How do they secretly maintain a romance? Does it become something serious? Maybe Thomas gets sent to a clearing hospital? As the war ends does it go further or does her divorce hinder the romance going beyond France?

Meanwhile, they gave Thomas and Miles fairly simple backgrounds. Their friendship felt real and I really enjoyed their scenes together.

Don't even get me started on Joan's story line.

Oh and Richard Rankin. Dear movie/tv people -- please cast him in more things.

[–] magpieskye 9 years ago

bingo, there was enough material in s1 for at least four series. It seemed like each ep was trying to outdo the previous one for melodrama. They shot their entire load for all six years of the war in the season about the first year.

Have you watched Anzac Girls? I think it was done much better than this program, although it, too, fell into the romance trap. Imo the romance in AG was much more organic. I wish both of these series had concentrated more on hospital life than on the romantic interests of the nurses.

If you're interested in checking out Anzac Girls, it's streaming on Acorn TV, which offers a 30 day free trial.

[–] Tvfan2323 9 years ago

I watched Anzac Girls before CF. I thought it was excellent. Anzac Girls is based on true stories, so that's probably why it felt more organic.

[–] flowwalker 9 years ago

Tvfan: I agree with your criticisms, but had become a fan by episode 6 regardless.

If we want the series to have another chance, we can petition BBC to renew it. You can see and sign an existing petition at:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/bring-back-another-season-of-the-crimson-field

[–] Jes' Sayin' (5953) 7 years ago

Disagree that the number of storylines was the problem, because, that number of storylines worked just fine in Downton.

The real problem was that they didn't give us characters to root for. They kept all the information about these characters secret and only slowly revealed it. As a consequence we didn't really get to know them and what they were trying to achieve and so we didn't identify with them. Result: apathy. And with all the gore and stupidity of people in charge it's not that easy to watch anyway. So the audience start checking out.