Author Topic: PBS Masterpiece 2017 - 2018  (Read 38437 times)

rosemarykaye

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #40 on: January 20, 2017, 01:23:22 PM »
 
See the 2017 MASTERPIECE schedule

Let's talk about PBS programs that we enjoy.

UPCOMING


My Mother and Other Strangers
June 18, 2017

Set in Northern Ireland during World War Two, My Mother and Other Strangers follows the fortunes of the Coyne family and their neighbors as they struggle to maintain a normal life after a huge United States Army Air Force (USAAF) airfield, with 4,000 service men and women, lands in the middle of their rural parish.


  Grantchester, Season 3
June 18, 2017

James Norton (Happy Valley) stars as the handsome, jazz-loving vicar Sidney Chambers, with Robson Green as his law-enforcement ally, Inspector Geordie Keating, in Grantchester, a mystery series based on the acclaimed novels by James Runcie. When we last left the sleepy village, Sidney faced a moral dilemma: be with the woman he loves, or take the moral high road.


  Prime Suspect: Tennison
June 25, 2017

MASTERPIECE dials back the clock to spotlight the influences that turned 22-year-old rookie policewoman Jane Tennison into the savvy, single-minded crime fighter beloved by Prime Suspect viewers. Starring Stefanie Martini (Doctor Thorne) in the iconic role immortalized by Helen Mirren, Prime Suspect: Tennison airs in three riveting 90-minute episodes.

ALREADY DISCUSSED

King Charles III
May 14, 2017

The hit Broadway show King Charles III, starring Tim Pigott-Smith, adapted for television, imagines Prince Charles’ ascension to the throne following Queen Elizabeth’s death.


Dark Angel
May 21, 2017

Starring Downton Abbey‘s Joanne Froggatt, Dark Angel tells the story of Mary Ann Cotton: loving wife, mother, and serial murderer. Faced with abject poverty and an ailing husband, Mary Ann is ruthlessly determined to pursue a better life.


Home Fires, Season 2 - Final Season
April 2 - May 7, 2017

The Final Season of Home Fires follows the women of an English rural village as they are separated from their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers during World War 1 and must forge alliances among their diverse community.


Wolf Hall - Encore Presentation
April 2 - May 7, 2017

An encore presentation of Season 1 from 2015 of Wolf Hall. Adapted from Hilary Mantel’s best-selling Booker Prize-winning novels Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, Wolf Hall follows the complex machinations and back room dealings of accomplished power broker Thomas Cromwell, who must serve king and country while dealing with deadly political intrigue, Henry VIII’s tempestuous relationship with Anne Boleyn, and the religious upheavals of the Protestant reformation.


To Walk Invisible The Bronte Sisters
March 26, 2017 (2 hours)

Written and directed by Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax), To Walk Invisible depicts the evolution of secluded, dutiful clergyman’s daughters into authors of the most controversial fiction of the 1840s.



Victoria, Season 1
January 15 - March 5, 2017

A diminutive, neglected teenager is crowned Queen Victoria, who navigates the scandal, corruption, and political intrigues of the Court, and soon rises to become the most powerful woman in the world.


Sherlock, Season 4
January 1 - 15, 2017

Sherlock (with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman) returns with three brand-new episodes that promise laughter, tears, shocks, surprises and extraordinary adventures.



Ginny - the last one of Sherlock did not go down too well with many people here, but I thought it was excellent, and very scary. My daughter saw it as 'lazy' and said they borrowed too much from Dr Who, which they also write, but which i do not watch. And I loved the 'return' of that person (!) - the most brilliant actor of the entire cast IMO.

We are into the new series of Endeavour, and very much enjoying that too.

And Call the Midwife returns on Sunday - can't wait :)

Rosemary

Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #41 on: January 20, 2017, 04:22:04 PM »
A new Endeavour? I hope we see it here eventually.

ANNIE

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #42 on: February 13, 2017, 11:51:57 AM »
I watched an episode of "Agatha Raisin" when it was on PBS here in Gahanna. I don't particularly like it because Agatha does not look like I thought she would and she is a bit of a flibbertgy Gidget. Blonde bombshell!
I don't like "'Miss Fisher's Mysterys" either. Same kind of stories which I think could have been better presented.
"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." Robert Southey

rosemarykaye

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #43 on: February 13, 2017, 01:23:31 PM »
I agree about Miss Fisher's Mysteries - so irritating! I haven't even watched the Agatha Raisin ones - saw a trailer and that was more than enough.

We have a new series of the Painting Challenge just starting. I really enjoy this - it's like Bake Off but with amateur artists. I can't paint anything, so I like to see how people do it. This week they'd to do a couple of still lifes, and it was amazing how different the results were from one another.

Rosemary

FlaJean

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #44 on: February 23, 2017, 11:54:21 AM »
I enjoy Miss Fisher's Mysteries.  A good escape now and then from all the news and politics.

rosemarykaye

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #45 on: March 08, 2017, 03:01:31 AM »
I don't know if Broadchurch was shown in the US, but we have just begun a new series of it. Two episodes in and it is brilliant - though harrowing too.

It concerns not a murder (at least not so far) but a serious sexual assault (which we do not see - it's all about the aftermath) by an as yet unidentified assailant. The victim is played by Julie Hesmondhalgh, a fantastic actress. She's not in the least glamorous. We are starting to discover that she does not fit the typical role of victim at all, and the story therefore raises a lot of questions about what we expect of women, how we judge their behaviour, and why they are expected to be as pure as the driven snow when men are often just seen as 'lads' when they behave similarly. It's thought-provoking. In this week's episode the woman's daughter, aged 15, returned from a weekend trip to find out what had happened to her mother while she was away. It was an incredibly heartbreaking scene, and made me think about how I would cope with telling my own daughters something like that.

Olivia Coleman and David Tennant are back as the police officers. They are both outstanding, and the working relationship between them is so well done.

So far I have no idea who the perpetrator was - there are so many possibilities - but in a way it doesn't matter, the value of the story is the way in which it shows how a family, and a whole town, can be affected by such a thing.

There are 8 episodes in all, and this will be the last series as the writer has now been headhunted to write Dr Who. i will be on the edge of my sofa every Monday night.

Rosemary

FlaJean

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #46 on: March 08, 2017, 01:58:32 PM »
I saw the first Broadchurch.  It was very good.  Hope we get the new series.

marcie

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #47 on: March 16, 2017, 10:08:54 PM »
I too hope that we get the new Broadchurch in the US. I don't see a specific date yet.

Meanwhile, I'm interested in the 2-hour program about the Bronte sisters that PBS is showing on March 26. See info about TO WALK INVISIBLE THE BRONTE SISTERS at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/episodes/to-walk-invisible-the-bronte-sisters/

CallieOK

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #48 on: March 17, 2017, 04:14:22 PM »
I found Broadchurch  on Netflix and put it on my List.  There are 2 seasons available.

However, between other things on my List,  e-books waiting to be read and Life In General,  the conversation here may have gone on to other things before I get to watch!   ;D

rosemarykaye

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #49 on: March 18, 2017, 05:48:51 AM »
The most recent season of Call the Midwife ended last Sunday, though my daughter and I have still to see the final episode. The good news is that a new season of Vera starts this Sunday - for anyone who hasn't seen it before, it's based on the books by Ann Cleeves, set in Northumberland. The inimitable Brenda Blethyn plays Vera, a police detective with some unorthodox methods. I love it but my mother is not so keen - anyone else seen it? If you are American you will probably need subtitles, as the Geordie accent can be impenetrable even for us, but IMO it's worth persevering!

Ann Cleeves apparently started writing when she was living at a bird observatory, her husband being an avid bird watcher who had a job there. She's not into birds so she needed something else to do.  I am not into my husband's interests in sport and music festivals, but somehow I don't seem to have produced any bestselling books as yet...  ::)

Rosemary

FlaJean

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #50 on: March 18, 2017, 12:41:48 PM »
I enjoyed Series I of Vera but it is no longer on Netflix and they never added a Series II.  I did need subtitles  :).

rosemarykaye

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #51 on: March 18, 2017, 01:02:21 PM »
That's a shame - I do think it's got better and better (whereas Granchester, for example, seems to have deteriorated horribly in the most recent series).

ANNIE

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #52 on: March 18, 2017, 04:22:03 PM »
I just read about the Bronte sisters program. I didn't know it was going to be a series. That sounds interesting. I will put it on my calendar! I'm serious about this! On my wall calendar!!! I have never used my iPhone calendar.😢😢. Maybe I should!😋😋
"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." Robert Southey

Jonathan

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #53 on: March 19, 2017, 03:48:27 PM »
I wouldn't miss the series for anything. The lives of the Bronte sisters were so unique. I've been to Haworth and got caught up in the mood of the place. Their father, too, was an unusual character, I found, after reading a biography of him, A Man of Sorrow. He lived on after losing wife and children, one after the other.

He asked Elizabeth Gaskell to write a biography of Charlotte after she died. His own character came off rather badly in the book, and his feelings are reflected in a letter he wrote to Mrs Gaskell:

'I do not deny that I am somewhat eccentrick. Had I been numbered amongst the calm, sedate, concentric men of the world, I should not have been as I now am,, and I should in all probability never have had such children as mine have been.'

RIP, Patrick.  Thoroughbreds, all of them.

marcie

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #54 on: March 19, 2017, 06:24:25 PM »
I very much enjoy the episodes of VERA whenever they are (infrequently) shown.

I believe that the new TO WALK INVISIBLE THE BRONTE SISTERS won't be a series but is a special 2-hour drama that will be broadcast next week. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/episodes/to-walk-invisible-the-bronte-sisters/

That's an interesting quote, Jonathan. I wonder if the program will include a perspective on the father.

rosemarykaye

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #55 on: March 19, 2017, 06:59:50 PM »
I think it was a one-off here Marcie, though I didn't see it.

First one of Vera tonight was brilliant!

Rosemary

marcie

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #56 on: March 20, 2017, 05:02:41 PM »
I am jealous, Rosemary! Well, I just checked my public library and they have all of the Vera seasons, including Season Six. I'm going to check which episodes I've missed, or at least don't sound familiar :-).

marcie

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #57 on: March 26, 2017, 02:48:23 PM »
Reminder: The 2-hour program,To Walk Invisible The Bronte Sisters, will be shown on most PBS stations this evening.

Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #58 on: March 26, 2017, 02:54:48 PM »
Thanks, Marcie. I would have forgotten about it otherwise.

Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #59 on: March 27, 2017, 07:08:24 AM »
To Walk Invisible was interesting. I had trouble understanding some of the speech, though. The accent wasn't a problem, but the fast, forced sounding speech was. Throughout the show Charlotte and Emily seemed to have to struggle to get out anything at all without sounding and looking like they were terrified of speaking or were holding back, not quite successfully, anger. Now I have an urge to read some of their works. The only one I ever read was Jane Eyre, and it left a powerful impression on me.

I barely recognized Johnathan Pryce. He also did a TV Movie last year, called Aberfan: The Green Hollow, commemorating the Aberfan school disaster of 1966. I'd like very much to see that if it ever is shown on this side of the pond. My Mom was from Merthyr Tydfil, just up the valley a mile or so. We did not lose family in the disaster, but friends of the family did. I remember how sad it was to travel, a few years later, past the site with all the white crosses on the green hillside across the narrow valley from the train.  The 50th anniversary of the disaster was on October 16, 2016.   

Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #60 on: March 27, 2017, 07:50:30 AM »
For those who might want to read Charlotte Bronte's comments on their pseudonyms, Project Gutenberg has obliged. I expect that, in making the TV movie, this was one of the sources consulted.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/771

For those curious about Patrick Bronte's poems, Gutenberg is also forthcoming.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17081

ginny

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #61 on: March 27, 2017, 04:10:25 PM »
This is such a non sequitur I apologize, and you'll laugh at me with all these serious subjects going on,  but we had a spring break last week and I have been binge watching Father Brown, the new one on PBS. I had no idea there were 5  seasons of it, and I've got the first 4 because the 5th is only still in British format.

I absolutely love it.  I just finished the first year's shows (they have several disks in each season, I don't know how I missed any of them.  I did not know any of the cast, so the names Sorcha Cusack and Nancy Carroll (of Call the Midwife) and the others noted meant nothing to me, but they do now.

I don't see how they could have found a better Father Brown than Mark Williams, he's perfect, and I don't remember him either from Harry Potter or any of the other credits. So nice for once to see a program with a positive message for a change. But plenty of mystery, too. Wonderful locations. Great series.

But I do recognize the Bishop and so would anybody who ever watched Doc Martin, he's Clive! Mrs. Tichell's husband! He's a prickly Bishop unlike his clumsy Clive counterpart.

I've signed up for Vera on Netflix because I really liked the trailer I saw of it.

Speaking of Doc Martin it's now filming in Cornwall (Port Isaac) its 8th season of 9. Penhale is back!  If we all run  we can all see them in the process of filming hahahaa. The house next door to his is for sale in real life, here's the ad, and the price:


Ever fancied living next door to Doc Martin? Well now you can...

The three-bedroom home in Port Isaac, next door to where they film the ITV phenomenon starring Martin Clunes, is on the market and you could own it.

Built in the 17th century, the grade-two listed cottage is in a prime, slightly elevated, location on Roscarrock Hill with one of the best views looking out to the harbour, over the old village and out to sea.

This beautiful white-washed cottage oozes character and charm, retaining many of its original features and has been cherished by the same family for over 400 years.

Merging fiction with reality, the picturesque Port Isaac property is currently owned by a real life GP. Although he doesn't live in the home himself – he lets it out as a Cornish holiday cottage.

What a view...



"I only lived there for one summer as a GP in 1974 but my grandmother lived there until she was 93," said Dr Hambly.

"Since the 16th century it's been home to doctors and coastguards and nearby there is a tunnel where people used to smuggle.

"It's one of the oldest houses in the village and it's in a wonderful spot.

The cute cottage is fittingly named The White House and it's on the market with John Bray & Partners for £795,000.

Read more at http://www.cornwalllive.com/house-next-door-to-doc-martin-is-for-sale-in-port-isaac-but-it-will-not-come-cheap/story-29734384-detail/story.html#By3wuz46g1Efr1dr.99


rosemarykaye

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #62 on: March 27, 2017, 04:23:51 PM »
Ginny - I LOVE Father Brown - it is my daughter's and my go-to programme when we want something comforting! I agree, Mark Williams is brilliant (he was excellent in H Potter too, and I'm not even a JK Rowling fan). There are endless repeats of FB episodes on our TV so we record them all and dip in when we want to.

Almost £800,000 for a house in Cornwall! In my childhood it was a remote and cheap place to live. Now it's the same old story - all the good property has been bought up by London bankers and locals can't afford it, villages are ghost towns most of the year and services are non-existent because there aren't enough all year residents to justify them. The same thing has happened in many of the more attractive coastal villages in East Lothian and the East Neuk of Fife. Property prices are an obsession in this country - I get the impression that is not so much the case in the US?

Rosemary

ginny

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #63 on: March 27, 2017, 04:56:33 PM »
Comforting! That's the word! Comforting it sure is.

Everything in the way of house prices in the UK seems inflated to me, but I am pretty sure people coming here might think the same. It depends on where you live, I think. Sometimes I watch those real estate shows and the one based in NYC is out of this world, the properties and the costs, but possibly, somebody correct me, San Francisco has the most exorbitant prices tho there are more billionaires in NYC than any other city in the US.  I am not sure.

 I once had the dream (and that's all it was) of having a house in the UK, because I have so enjoyed my trips there, just love those rental cottages the National Trust does,  but was instantly disabused of the very notion by looking in the real estate agent's windows. I thought I wasn't reading the signs correctly. hahahaa I was.

I love Port Isaac. We stayed there  a couple of weeks in Carnweather, which is part of  Doyden House right on  the coast. You know the little castle tower folly that Mrs. Tichell took the baby to in Doc Martin? It's on the property too, called Doyden Castle.

I guess  prosperity has hit the little town, they were incredibly nice people. It was like a....movie set, and so it is today. I hope they are reaping TONS of money.  We have such wonderful memories of it now but I haven't been back. The BEST homemade nougat I ever had and the best fish (despite Burt Large now) hahaha and the most AWFUL "1 mile walk" which had to be 8 miles  at least on the Coastal Trail was it? haahaha Nearly lost two of us. People would sign a journal and leave notes of good walks, etc., for the next people. It was charming it really was.

ANNIE

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #64 on: March 27, 2017, 07:53:24 PM »
Rosemary,  I was just discussing the cost of property in CA vs OH with a cousin.  She is conparing the two and maybe will move to OH next year.  CA is an expensive state to live in when it comes to owning your own place.  And in Ohio, you get more bang for your buck.

Ginny, I love and DVR all of Father Brown!  But I never noticed that the Bishop was also Clive on Doc Martin! Did you say that they are now filming Season 9? I thought they were doing 7! Do you mean that what I am watching (all repeats that I have already seen) is not the season I thought
it was?? That means I can go watch 1 or 2 seasons that I've never seen? Whoa!

Am I in the right discussion to talk about The Invisable Bronte Sisters?
"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." Robert Southey

ginny

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #65 on: March 27, 2017, 10:24:21 PM »
Yes, you're in the right discussion. I just got it off course.  :).   They are now filming season eight, the newest season of Doc Martin, and they will have one more year in their current arrangement, to go, so there will be nine altogether, 7 of which are now on DVD.

Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #66 on: March 28, 2017, 06:34:22 AM »
Hi Anne,

See my posts 60 and 61 for some interesting links regarding the Bronte sisters and their brother.

I tried Father Brown. It was just okay; I haven't been watching it for a year or so now. I also didn't care much for the one Grandchester I saw. Between the two, I liked Father Brown better.

ANNIE

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #67 on: March 28, 2017, 09:38:10 PM »
Oh, Frybabe, what a treasure Gutenberg offers us about the three sisters and how they thought and why they wrote! Thank you so much for those links🤓💕. I did peek in to read a small bit of Patrick's work and will return later to enjoy his poems.

As for the Sunday night program, I didn't know what to think. After Patrick dies, Charlotte thought back to how they treated Patrick's poetry the night he was sure he could join their little group of writers. How they handed back his work and told him to go. How sorry she was and just sat there
crying.
Was she wondering if they had treated Patrick more kindly during that time in their childhood, if he wouldn't have lived a better life and been a better person.
"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." Robert Southey

Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #68 on: March 29, 2017, 06:45:27 AM »
I thought so too, Annie. Rejection by the principal females in his life seems to have played a part in his downfall.

For those of you who like Martin Freeman, I discovered that he is starring in a Crackle original TV series, called Start-Up, which takes place in Miami. As the name implies, it is about a guy trying to start a business. I plan on watching the first episode later on today. It is under their TV heading, British category. 

ginny

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #69 on: March 31, 2017, 09:00:49 PM »
For those of you who may have missed Wolf Hall, PBS is rerunning it starting this Sunday at 10:00 pm, at least on the NC  channels.


Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #70 on: April 01, 2017, 05:33:09 AM »
Ginny, I have Wolf Hall on my Watchlist on Amazon Prime. I haven't started watching it yet. I'm trying to get some of the other programs I've had marked earlier out of the way.

ginny

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #71 on: April 01, 2017, 09:50:13 AM »
I think the reason that's big news (and I don't know where you watch Amazon Prime) is that on the big screen the quality of the program, the acting, the scenery, the experience,  is pretty amazing. I have it on DVD but I found that the comparison to a 10.5 screen on a portable DVD player and a 29" monitor,  and a large screen TV  really makes a difference. At least for me, but my eyesight is admittedly quite poor.

I've just bought the new Amazon Fire Stick which will allow me to watch any Amazon Prime stuff on the big screen, which I like for a movie (and the CBS new series with Christine Baransky, too) but it will not allow you to also  tape it on DVR, nor will Prime, so with PBS if you want to go back and look at the spectacular acting, you can, over and over. Of course you can do that on DVD, also. She must be nearing the end of her third book in the trilogy, which has been long awaited. I figure they know something I don't.


Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #72 on: April 01, 2017, 11:26:30 AM »
I checked and found that they will be showing it on my PBS station also.

rosemarykaye

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #73 on: April 02, 2017, 01:13:12 PM »
Wolf Hall is a brilliant adaptation, but the sets are dark - I think they said that this was because interiors were dark in those days.

Mark Rylance and Claire Foy were the stars of the show for me, but there were so many other good performances - Damian Lewis, Mark Gatiss, Anton Lesser, all outstanding.

Enjoy!

Rosemary

ginny

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #74 on: April 03, 2017, 11:45:02 AM »
OH it is and it began last night with a new introduction I've never seen, magic. Yes on the dark, didn't they say that they filmed it in natural light, just as it would have seemed to the people at the time?

They are so BIG on the screen. I'm so used to tiny little figures. hahaha The guy who played Norfolk also is outstanding.  And of course Jonathan Pryce. They are ALL just wonderful.

Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #75 on: April 04, 2017, 09:33:47 PM »
I didn't want to stay up so late to watch or wait a week for the next episode, so I started watching it on Amazon. Interesting the way they portrayed some of the people. I don't know what to make, exactly, of Cromwell. He sees all, says not much (no excess verbiage there), and always has such a sad, unhappy face. Thomas More comes off as being a bit sarcastic maybe? Nasty. I think I liked the portrayal of More a lot better in A Man for All Seasons. I wonder if the real man was somewhere in between.

ginny

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #76 on: April 07, 2017, 12:32:37 PM »
Oh good, you're watching it, too!

I am so disappointed that on this rerun they are cutting it off sharp at the hour, and some of the episodes are longer, so I'm missing stuff. It's  a good thing I can look at the DVD's,  or see it,  as you say, on Amazon. I must hook up that FIRE stick thing so I can see it full size (or bigger than a pea anyway).

Yes, the whole thing was supposedly about the difference in Cromwell, how  Rylance's portrayal (which is nothing short of wonderful) makes him seem so...what would you say?  Not the horrid monster one may previously have thought, tho there ARE hints. Mantel has  taken the liberty of making them fit, the viewer can excuse this or that, and Rylance I think could do anything. I THINK Mantel said that she herself was somewhat altered by the actor's portrayals, when she watched the film, which she liked.

 Revisionist history people shouted, but look at Bishop Gardiner and especially, as you say,  Thomas More.  I THINK, and it's been a while since this came out, but I think this More portrayal came from Mantel's research at Oxford (I thought,  but it could be Cambridge) as I've seen the name of the eminent scholar who had been consulted and  who was writing at the time the supposed definitive biography of More.  At the time I wrote down his name, but I can't find it now or his book, I've been checking on the recent biographies. Maybe I need to check on those written right after her book came out, the first one...was it 2012? Not sure.. and not the movie.

There is going to be another movie, but her 3rd book is not yet out. What on earth will it say? And how?

I can't get over the production values, I really can't, they are spectacular.

He was saintly in a Man for All Seasons, wasn't he?  Just wonderful, one cried.  He's not the same man  here, wait till you see the rest. Which one was he, or was he, as you say,  a little of both?

Norfolk in this fascinates me. The whole thing is fascinating.

It does make you wonder whether or not revisionist history is a good thing or a bad one. Should we keep the people we have set up on pedestals and/ or in this case as villains,  firmly on them, or not?

Do we need them, more than we need the truth?


Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #77 on: April 07, 2017, 04:41:46 PM »
Were the originals more than an hour? The first season shows on Amazon are too. Well, the first one was an hour and one minute, the rest so far are 59 minutes. There are six episodes with the seventh being a talk about the show with the actors.

I rather suspect that More was actually in between a saint and a nasty dude. What surprised me is that they seemed to indicate that More and his wife were not very close. I got that mostly from a comment she made and when, given a last chance to sign the paper, More just shrugged at the suggestion he could go home to his wife and children should he sign. I can't believe that he would not have taken measures to make sure his family would be secure from vengeful factions should he be executed. That wasn't mentioned in the video.

So far, I get the impression that both Cromwell and More, in the show, are more or less swept along with the events and just trying in their own ways to make the best of circumstances. I really know so very little about either man, not to mention the greater court of Henry VIII other than a general knowledge of him and his eight wives (and I am sure I've forgotten half of what I knew when I was into English history).

BTW, I do love Rylance's "hangdog" look for Cromwell. Wosley, as I recall, was not kindly looked on by history either. Bishop Gardiner is someone whom I know nothing about. He is pretty much relegated in the show to making snide remarks and giving nasty looks toward Cromwell.

ginny

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #78 on: April 07, 2017, 05:05:21 PM »
I don't know. I thought the first was one and a half hours but I am glad to hear yours are within the hour. I'll hope this next one does not get cut off like the first one did, Henry was in mid sentence.

:) Yes, I just read an interview with Mark Gatiss, who plays Gardiner, who said all he really did was show up when Cromwell was going somewhere and b***at him. hahahaa. I really like him, he's the creator and writer of the new Sherlock series (and plays Mycroft).

The Court thing is fascinating, especially considering Caesar was considered the first to have a "court" as we know it. You can see, just by observing,  how the feudal system developed and then how it declined and finally  ended, supposedly  with Henry VIII.

Frybabe

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Re: PBS Masterpiece 2017
« Reply #79 on: April 08, 2017, 06:33:30 AM »
Holbein the Younger's portrait of Cromwell:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell#/media/File:Cromwell,Thomas(1EEssex)01.jpg

The slide show continues with several other portraits including Ann Boleyn. She was pretty.