The Pillars of the Earth (TV Mini-Series 2010)

I'll admit that I almost gave up on this series after the first episode. So many plots shown briefly and so many characters! But I had just taken a course on the period so I battled through it. Luckily, they've been doing many repeated showings of the episodes, so I watched the first episode a second time and the series has won me over.

Now if you've read the book, of course, you're going to be a little disappointed. You've spent many hours with these characters and formed your own images and opinions about who they are and what they look like. The author had the luxury to spend as much time on each one and each scene to craft all the details. The series has only 8 hours so many details and subplots will have to be altered just a bit. And many of the reviewers who have been devoted lovers of the book have complained either that it would be impossible to catch every detail or that the series creators left out so-and-so detail but the fact is that you can't satisfy the nit-pickers. After watching the first 4 episodes, I've become entranced by the characters and the epic. Sure you have to invest some effort into figuring things out at the start. Sure some of the historical inaccuracies when it comes to the portrayal of printed books centuries before they could have existed are a bit jarring. But the important facts are that these are small trade-offs when you consider the big picture. They only make me more intrigued about how anyone could become learned in a time when printed information was difficult to come by.

The acting is uniformly fine and I've come to like the good guys and feel my skin crawl when the evil ones make appearances. I really do hope that they do a second series and I'll be at the edge of my seat for the final 4 episodes of this one. It's been ages since an historical mini-series has succeeded as well as this. Let's appreciate it and hope that it lights the spark for many more to come. It's not sitcom pablum and big ideas deserve to be thought about deeply. Put in the effort and this series rewards.