Caring about bonnets
Mar. 10th, 2016 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessITV Hub, why so difficult? Despite it, last night I did catch up on Doctor Thorne.
I’ve never read the book it’s based on (or anything by Trollope) but I’ve been looking forward to this in the hope that it would introduce Alison Brie to the UK.
So, ITV turns to Golden Goose Fellowes to try to wrest period drama/adaptation rights from the BBC.
Episode 1
The most striking thing initially was that the typefact was a bit old-fashioned, partly because they’d gone for yellow.
Lovejoy played younger than his years to kill a Doctor Thorne (there’s another one, his brother, so the title doesn’t refer to him) and then we moved forward in time to scrumptious grounds to see posh girls with flowers in their hair discussing a forthcoming wedding, and some of them were snobs to Mary Thorne. Beatrice wasn’t, and for a second, I thought she’d be the heroine.
I don’t think I know Stefanie Martini, who plays Mary Thorne, from anything – I will say she seems a little modern. Anyway, not only is Mary middle class (the horror!) she’s also illegitimate so Lady Rebecca Front (who hasn’t been on TV for, like, a fortnight) was trying to put some distance between her children and their childhood friends now that they’re about grown up. For Frank, the son of the house, and, I inferred, not of age, was sure he’s in lurve, and Mary liked him but maybe thought of him as a boy. She also seemed rather intelligent.
She lived in a gorgeous village with her uncle (good Tom Hollander, pitted in the schedules against bad Tom Hollander in The Night Manager), who confirmed her suspicions that she was illegitimate and told her that her mother had abandoned her for a new life with a bossy husband in Australia. Ouch. Anyway, this made her an ineligible wife in Victorian England, however much her adopted father tried to sugar-coat it, and Mary seemed to have internalised the upper class beliefs about breeding and so forth, so she was all sadface.
I thought the music was overdone, certainly at first, although it became less distracting as the story got more involved and involving.
We moved on to posh interiors! There’s less gaping than there was at W&P but the architecture and decor are still plus factors.The first Downton alum (Rose’s awful mother) appeared and was also a money-grabbing snob, although I really didn’t get why she thought she was going to change her nephew Frank’s mind about anything. Why not leave him to his managing mother? Also tempting a young man of 20 going on 21 with a woman aged 30-35? Mmm. No.
We learned that one of the daughters of the house was marrying a Harry Knowles alike, who, like Mary had noted, had no charm (but he did have money) and there was an ‘election’ coming. (Were lower class men allowed to vote by this point? Women weren’t.) Also, the father of the house was bad at financial management (hello, Lord Grantham’s inspiration).
The first big twist was revealed at another posh house, namely that Lovejoy was the previously mentioned Sir Roger Sketcherd of the Railway Money who actually owned everything, not the snobby Greshons. He was drinking himself into the grave, and told Dr Thorne he was (unknowingly) making Mary his second heir after ‘Louis Phillipe’. Was the woman who let Dr Thorne in Sir Roger’s housekeeper or wife?
At the ball to celebrate his majority, Frank was So In Love with Mary, but knowingly illegitimate Mary was determined to snub him for his own good, and, by the way, showed she was a very good manager. I hope I’m not meant to be madly pro Mary/Frank, because I don’t think he’s man enough for her. Ah well, I suppose he could grow up.
Dr Thorne, dude, you have more money than most people in your village.
Lady Rebecca Front handled things badly in her attempts to divest Frank of Mary – of course the Doctor would be super sensitive to anyone accusing Mary of improper conduct given her parents. (Also, he was right, Frank needed money AND worth or his wife wouldn’t be helping him not waste his money.) Anyway, he was all offended father figure and Lady Arabella remembered too late that he was the go-between between them and the money that was keeping the Greshams going.
Frank went visiting at an even posher place than we’d seen before (a castle, mark you!), and enter Miss Dunstable and her Big Blue Eyes i.e. Alison Brie playing a grown-up, which is fun to watch, ALSO a smart lady, apparently, who knows she’s being hunted for her fortune.
Then there was confirmation that the lady who dressed like widowed!Victoria was Lady Sketchers, but also a former nanny, so excuse my confusion. She’s about the closest we get to hearing from ‘downstairs’.
Dr Thorne half-confessed to Sir Roger that he might have lied a bit.
Then we learned that Mr Moffett would dump his fiancée for her dom!cousin in a heartbeat and that Frank and Miss Dollars Dunstable were getting on like a house on fire as he had met her forthrightness by telling her about how the girl he had his eye on wouldn’t dance with him.
Dr Thorne half-confessed to Mary that he might have lied a bit. Poor love, to find out your uncle murdered your father is quite a lot to be getting on with. Mary, that is. Dr Thorne was conflicted because he didn’t want to be superseded by another uncle.
So, I’m not shipping anyone and I think the central (non-romantic) love story is between Dr No First Name Thorne and Mary, but I’m enjoying the way the women are written – actually most of the characters - and seeing parallels with Downton and, for that matter, Wives and Daughters, because of the Doctor's niece/daughter heroine and Tom Hollander himself. By the way, he's as good as you'd expect him to be. It's a brew of class, money and secrets.
I also caught up on Agents of SHIELD, so expect a post on that.
I’ve never read the book it’s based on (or anything by Trollope) but I’ve been looking forward to this in the hope that it would introduce Alison Brie to the UK.
So, ITV turns to Golden Goose Fellowes to try to wrest period drama/adaptation rights from the BBC.
Episode 1
The most striking thing initially was that the typefact was a bit old-fashioned, partly because they’d gone for yellow.
Lovejoy played younger than his years to kill a Doctor Thorne (there’s another one, his brother, so the title doesn’t refer to him) and then we moved forward in time to scrumptious grounds to see posh girls with flowers in their hair discussing a forthcoming wedding, and some of them were snobs to Mary Thorne. Beatrice wasn’t, and for a second, I thought she’d be the heroine.
I don’t think I know Stefanie Martini, who plays Mary Thorne, from anything – I will say she seems a little modern. Anyway, not only is Mary middle class (the horror!) she’s also illegitimate so Lady Rebecca Front (who hasn’t been on TV for, like, a fortnight) was trying to put some distance between her children and their childhood friends now that they’re about grown up. For Frank, the son of the house, and, I inferred, not of age, was sure he’s in lurve, and Mary liked him but maybe thought of him as a boy. She also seemed rather intelligent.
She lived in a gorgeous village with her uncle (good Tom Hollander, pitted in the schedules against bad Tom Hollander in The Night Manager), who confirmed her suspicions that she was illegitimate and told her that her mother had abandoned her for a new life with a bossy husband in Australia. Ouch. Anyway, this made her an ineligible wife in Victorian England, however much her adopted father tried to sugar-coat it, and Mary seemed to have internalised the upper class beliefs about breeding and so forth, so she was all sadface.
I thought the music was overdone, certainly at first, although it became less distracting as the story got more involved and involving.
We moved on to posh interiors! There’s less gaping than there was at W&P but the architecture and decor are still plus factors.The first Downton alum (Rose’s awful mother) appeared and was also a money-grabbing snob, although I really didn’t get why she thought she was going to change her nephew Frank’s mind about anything. Why not leave him to his managing mother? Also tempting a young man of 20 going on 21 with a woman aged 30-35? Mmm. No.
We learned that one of the daughters of the house was marrying a Harry Knowles alike, who, like Mary had noted, had no charm (but he did have money) and there was an ‘election’ coming. (Were lower class men allowed to vote by this point? Women weren’t.) Also, the father of the house was bad at financial management (hello, Lord Grantham’s inspiration).
The first big twist was revealed at another posh house, namely that Lovejoy was the previously mentioned Sir Roger Sketcherd of the Railway Money who actually owned everything, not the snobby Greshons. He was drinking himself into the grave, and told Dr Thorne he was (unknowingly) making Mary his second heir after ‘Louis Phillipe’. Was the woman who let Dr Thorne in Sir Roger’s housekeeper or wife?
At the ball to celebrate his majority, Frank was So In Love with Mary, but knowingly illegitimate Mary was determined to snub him for his own good, and, by the way, showed she was a very good manager. I hope I’m not meant to be madly pro Mary/Frank, because I don’t think he’s man enough for her. Ah well, I suppose he could grow up.
Dr Thorne, dude, you have more money than most people in your village.
Lady Rebecca Front handled things badly in her attempts to divest Frank of Mary – of course the Doctor would be super sensitive to anyone accusing Mary of improper conduct given her parents. (Also, he was right, Frank needed money AND worth or his wife wouldn’t be helping him not waste his money.) Anyway, he was all offended father figure and Lady Arabella remembered too late that he was the go-between between them and the money that was keeping the Greshams going.
Frank went visiting at an even posher place than we’d seen before (a castle, mark you!), and enter Miss Dunstable and her Big Blue Eyes i.e. Alison Brie playing a grown-up, which is fun to watch, ALSO a smart lady, apparently, who knows she’s being hunted for her fortune.
Then there was confirmation that the lady who dressed like widowed!Victoria was Lady Sketchers, but also a former nanny, so excuse my confusion. She’s about the closest we get to hearing from ‘downstairs’.
Dr Thorne half-confessed to Sir Roger that he might have lied a bit.
Then we learned that Mr Moffett would dump his fiancée for her dom!cousin in a heartbeat and that Frank and Miss Dollars Dunstable were getting on like a house on fire as he had met her forthrightness by telling her about how the girl he had his eye on wouldn’t dance with him.
Dr Thorne half-confessed to Mary that he might have lied a bit. Poor love, to find out your uncle murdered your father is quite a lot to be getting on with. Mary, that is. Dr Thorne was conflicted because he didn’t want to be superseded by another uncle.
So, I’m not shipping anyone and I think the central (non-romantic) love story is between Dr No First Name Thorne and Mary, but I’m enjoying the way the women are written – actually most of the characters - and seeing parallels with Downton and, for that matter, Wives and Daughters, because of the Doctor's niece/daughter heroine and Tom Hollander himself. By the way, he's as good as you'd expect him to be. It's a brew of class, money and secrets.
I also caught up on Agents of SHIELD, so expect a post on that.
