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I had a big problem with the over emotional inhabitants of Broadchurch, especially Beth, the mother of the murdered boy. Jodie Whittaker got on my last nerve, as did Olivia Coleman as Ellie, a totally unprofessional woman who should never have been allowed within a mile of a police station, lre alone wokring as a detective. The adults spent so much time yelling at each other, throwing plates and anything which came to hand, that it wasn't surprising that their children were mouthy brats. A young boy who yelled OUT when his father dared enter HIS room. A 15 year-old girl sleeping with her boyfriend. Whatever happened to parental discipline? "This is my house and while you live here you live by my rules!" The only actor making this series bearable for me was the wonderful Charlotte Rampling. Olivia Colman needs to take a few lessons on how it is done. Overall, the writing seemed like an AI generated story. Plug in a few names and a location, and a formulaic police drama pops out. Policeman with issues: lost his last case, marriage broke up, estranged from his daughter, instead of hitting the bottle, he had a bad heart. Assistant a loud mouthy woman with stay at home husband. Defence Attorney (season 2) with a son doing time for murder. Prosecuting attorney in lesbian affair with newspaper publisher. Where have we seen all this before?

There were just too many bloopers and stretches of credibility for this season to suceed. Monving from New Zealand to Australia; the appalling character of 'Puss'; and casting Nichole Kidman alongside Elisabeth Moss were all big mistakes. The tall attractive Kidman steals every scene, and wipes the floor with the short unsmiling Moss. OK, Robin Griffin, (Moss) is supposed to be a loser when it comes to men, but to ask us to believe that she is the object of every man's is desire, even if it is only for one night stands, is too much.

Asking us to believe that the assertive mouthy Mary would fall blindly in love with a sleazy 47-year-old Charles Manson type in need of a good wash was just ridiculous. Had Mary been a shy introvert, and Puss being a handsome older man, perhaps, but Mary was a girl who ruled the roost at home with her grovelling parents as slaves. Perhaps parents in Australia are no longer allowed to slap their unruly children, but had I ever spoken to my parents with the disrespect she showed, they would have laid me out cold, as would the parents of every other child I grew up with.

The plot of China Girl was almost identical to 'Goldstone', the second of the Mystery Road films - Asian girls trafficked to Australia on the pretext of going to college or getting good jobs, then fored to work in a brothel. In this case, they were also surrogate mothers. In the episode where the fetus of the dead girl was found to have differing DNA from the mother, I immediately shouted 'surrogate mother' at the screen, but it took Robin and the pathologist half the the episode before the penny dropped.

Another problem I found was when a man was shown buried in the sand with a cardboard box over his head on Bondi Beach in a temperture we were told was 35C (it was actually 38C during the filming). As he had been there several hours before the box was apprehended, there is no way he would have survived in the hot sand.

I did like Gwendoline Christie, though I think a softer hairstyle would have been better. However, the office romance with her character, her boss, was a definite no no. At least Nichole Kidman is almost as tall, but she and Elisabeth Moss (5'3") should not be shown onscreen together.

Overall, this season seemed like a lazy attempt to cash in on the first season, a starring role for Jane Campion's daughter, and a vanity project for Elisabeth Moss, made in Australia so they didn't have to leave home. At least it had the right ending, where the parents using the Asian girls as surrogates had no claims on the babies as commercial surrogacy is illegal in Australia. Tying it up with the aircraft being recalled and the girls being arrested would have been a totally false happy ending. Otherwise, too much bad language and sex.

No need to bother with a third season.

I found this series excellent, with only a minor quibble or two. In the 90's I rode a Harley Davidson and belonged to a group who worked during the week, but spent their weekends hanging out at a bar run by one of the group, and taking rides together to wherever there was a barbecue or party on a Sunday. The rides had many stops at favorite bars. We lived in Florida and never missed Daytona bike week and Octoberfest. All wore black leather and patches, but no club colors as those in clubs stayed apart. In my opinion, the riders liked to dress up and imagine they were big bad tough guys living the life, but few would have seriously considered joining a violent outlaw club. Never once did I see a party were they got naked or indulged in the antics shown in the series. I saw lots of drinking, but no drugs.

As no mention was made of how these supposed outlaw bikers earned their living, and some of them appeared to have jobs, they seemed more like weekend bikers to me rather than the full time hard core 1% criminal bikers. Australia in the early 80's may have been different for all I know, as the criminal outlaw gangs were alleged to be into the drug trade.

I particularly liked the fact that the actors appeared to be riding the motor cycles - no stuntmen other than the one time a rider wore a helmet and was thrown from his bike. I had thought several of the mullet cuts were wigs, but as none of them flew off while riding (unless it was very good green screen work) I guess Damien Walshe-Howling isn't really bald after all.

The lead actor did an excellent job and handled a very good Scottish accent throughout. Not sure if it would convince a Glaswegian, but at least we could understand what he was saying, something I cannot do with Billy Connelly. Jock struck me as the kind of power drunk ex-military man said to wear his stripes on his pyjamas and drills his children like raw recruits. The military was likely the best time of his life and time stopped there for him. His ambition is to build the largest club in Australia, for no real reason other than ego, and anything getting in the way of his dream triggers his dark side.

I wish there had been more seasons, but of course, it would have to be fiction as the reason story ended when the bad guys faced justice.

A delightful short film in which an exiled Indian Princess meets her father's old tutor for an annual birthday tea in her London flat. They share reminicences of the glory days of India before the Mahrahjas and Rajahs were stripped of their power and wealth, but it becomes quietly apparent that each remembers the same events differently. The Princess shows films and talks about her wonderful papa and life at his court, the hunts, pig sticking, and his kindly concern for his servants and people. The former British tutor, played to perfection by James Mason, remembers a clueless selfish man with no idea of how the other classes lived, whose kindness and 'enlightened' disposition masked a sense of entitlement, condescension, and total indifference to the feelings of others. The tutor, Cyril, had been kept prisoner to the Maharajah's whims by being showered with luxury and a very comfortable lifestyle to the effect that he abandoned all his goals and could not break away. The Maharajah likely had no idea of his indifference as he had never known anything else. His western educated daughter should have known, but chose not to, preferring to live in her fantasy world. The final scene, of an aged singing girl now living in a tiny 'hole in the wall' space in a former stable, happy that she had not died of the pox in the bazaar as the Maharajah had said most of them did, and singing as if she was still a court singer, was eerily similar to the Princess living alone in exile on her past memories.

A gentle comedy about ethusiastic hobbyists living with their like-minded peers in their own little world. Calling them enthusists hobbyists, fanatics, or cranks, whether they be train spotters, stamp collectors, bird watchers, amateur drama or opera groups, gardeners or in this case amateur historians doesn't matter - they love what they do and live for what they do to the exclusion of anything else. Their jobs are simply the means of makimg their passionate hobby possible.

The main characters are amateur metal detectorists living in the hope of finding a Saxon/Danish burial ground, Viking burial ship, Roman Villa or treasure buried during tumultous times in Southern Britain, and spending all their time i some farmer's field listing for the ping which reveals something worthwhile. Although discovery is quite possible, they are up against restrictive authority, getting permission to dig on private propery, other detectorists, magpies, and the local wildlife. Rather than ancient artifacts, they mostly uncover ring pulls from soda cans and rusty nails.

The dialog is as normal as if a microphone had been secreted wherever people talk to each other, and at times hilarious. "What's that a porcupine?" "No, an 'edge'og." "I thought 'edge'ogs were flat" "They are when they have been run over and squashed."

I would have rated this family viewing, except for the constant use of F___, which has cost it one star, perhaps it should have been 2. Judging by the costumes, vehicles and interior design, the show is set in the 80s or 90s, when the use of such language in Britain was not used in front of or by women, and even today is uncessary.

The first time around It took until episode 5 befere we discovered the big secret which characters kept hinting at in this ponderously slow drama. I like slow burn stories, but this one was confusing. The whole family seemed to live together in one absolutely stunning home. Three of the men had identical spade beards and I had trouble telling them apart or who was related to and/or married to whom. One brother, Jimmy, had a toreador bun, so he did stand out in profile, and appeared to be to be either the brother of the other two or their cousin. Later on a Turk, also with a beard and toreador bun appeared, then the father, who was in jail appeared, with guess what, a beard. Doesn't anyone in Ireland shave?

There was a mixed race child who was the daughter of one of the bearded men who had just spent 10 years in jail, I don't know what for, but he was not allowed to get in touch with his daughter. The occasional youth entered the story, only to be conveniently killed, and a foul mouthed woman popped up who was said to be the widow of a victim.

Aidan Gillen played a gay character named Frank, involved in the family's illegal business, who appeared to be living with Maria Kennedy Doyle's character, Birdy, who I found out later was his sister. Frank and Birdy were the siblings of Brendan, the father who was in jail. Several people were murdered in a tit-for-tat vendetta begun by a silly teenagers showing off. The final epsode ended in a Godfather style bloodbath intercut with the instigator at holy mass, leaving the way open for series 2, which I will not be watching unless I hear that they have hired scriptwriters to clarify the plot.

Update. After my unkind review I discovered the family tree in the Irish Mirror which explained who was who, and I watched the series over again and everything fell to place to the point where I upgraded my rating. Aiden Gillen, Maria Kennedy Doyle and Ciaran Hinds gave their usual strong performances. After the slow start, the series really ramped up by episode 6 and ended with an explosive finale.

This film won an Oscar for its Technicolor photography (I did't did see the credits list Technicolor, but everyone else is claiming that's what it was). As gaudy Technicolor had the reputation of never fading, thanks to the oversight of Natalie Kalmus, why did it suddenly revert to the red/green/brown of the two strip process for some outdoor scenes about two thirds of the way through the film? I guess an 82 year old film just couldn't last the course.

There seem to have been many pirate films during WW2, I guess a bit of color and spectacle was needed to keep spirits up. This film was spoiled by Maureen O'Hara's 40's look - pompadour hairstyle and heavy crimson lipstick, not to mention her feisty demeanor right off a recruiting poster for women to do the jobs of men away in the forces. Ms. O'Hara's costume was 100 years before its time, and as for Tyrone Power's Zorro costume, clothes must have been rationed. George Sanders was unrecognizable under that red wig, whiskers and 2' thick eyebrows, although his distinctive voice had me wondering where I had heard it before.

At least mouthy Ms. O'Hara, playing a predecessor of 'the Quiet Man's' Mary Kate Danahagh got smacked around and dumped on the floor a couple of times. I would love to hear the feminist reaction today.

I bought the Region 2 box set of Sharpe while in England and loved it, so much that I finally bought a multi region DVD player so I didn't have to watch it on my computer. I recently bought the blu ray discs to complete the series and while I enjoyed more Sharpe, I have to admit that 11 years of time and Tennant's Lager have not been kind to Sean Bean, who has aged noticeably. While I give him credit for returning to make Sharpe's Challenge for TV, when he had become a huge film and TV star, at 46, he was no longer as agile as previously: no leaping over the ramparts, no athletic dazzling duels, no looking as if he was born to ride a horse. The duels appeared to have been filmed in slow motion with Sharpe ready for a walker. This might also have been due to insurance companies restricting what a very valuable star was allowed to do.

If so many of the Chosen Ones had not been killed off at Waterloo in an attempt to wrap up the series, they could have fleshed out the cast, but it is what it is. Despite heroic efforts I think the Sharpe legend would have been better with several episodes from the books preceding the series with a much younger look-alike playing Sharpe. This way a few more episodes could have been made from Bernard Cornwell's novels, rather having painted themselves into a corner with an aging Sharpe and fictional events.

The episode was entertaining and splendid to watch, but where was the sardonic humor? The only time I laughed was at the very beginning when Sharpe told the little boy that "it's not thieving when you're hungry". Overall, the episode was "same old same old" and should have been better.

This began as an enjoyable historial fantasy romp reminiscent of the Saturday rnoring children's matinee serial, then sadly in Season two it became silly and by Season three had completely run out of steam so that I was desperate for it to end. In fact, I still haven't got all the way through the last episode. It didn't bother me that they played fast and loose with history, nor the modern dialog and swearing, and Leonardo apparently having invented everything but the atomic bomb, nor that he ended up in cliff hanger peril and got out of if it in every episode only to fall headlong into another cliff hanger, but the eternal darkness and the characters sloshing about in mud and pouring rain got tiresome after a while. I was even prepared to ignore the very loose ends in the plot, such as how they arrived on the east coast of South America, and after a day or so hacking through the jungle, arrived in the high Andes at what appeared to be Machu Pichu, but it just became silly. Good actors, such as Richard Sammell were wasted in brief cameos. At least Greg Chillingirian was a treat to watch, especially with the open to the waist shirt which never got dirty, displaying his manly chest. I would have given Season One a rating of 10, but the latter Seasons barely rated a 2, so I evened it out.

Although taking place in a small house or flat 95% of the time, with only three characters, this claustophobic account of the last days of Frank Mitchell held my attention and i could not turn it off.

John and Lisa were hired (or coerced) by the Kray twins to keep escapee Frank under wraps, presumably until they had decided what to do with him after springing him from Dartmoor. The escape was most likely giving the finger to the authorities to show how much power the Kray twins held. After making their point by getting him out of jail, what were they to do with him? For the time being, with Christmas days away, he was installed in a small residence with two Kray employees, John and Lisa, to take care of his needs, neither of whom seem too happy about it.

Elen Rhys gives an excellent performance as the working girl from one of the twins' clubs, approaching the end of her shelf life, who lays on the false professional charm at the beginning, but later begins to have sympathetic feelings for deluded Frank as she realises what is lkely to happen to him, and possibly to her and John once they have served their purpose, if the heat gets too intense. We never know why John and Lisa have been sent to take care of Frank, but they do as they are told. No one crosses the Kray twins - people have been known to disppear. In one scene Lisa, who initally thought it was for only one night, goes home, but returns after a day with a change of clothes and the look of having been set straight by the twins - she was there for the duration.

Not a fast moving action movie with car chases and punchups, but a quietly building study of fear.

As a child I was dazzled by the film 'A Captain from Castile' with Tyrone Power. Later I read Samuel Shellabarger's book, on which the film was based, but only Part One was filmed. Apparently 20th Century Fox did not want to spend the money on a sequel; therefore, the conquest stopped when Cortez and the victorious conquistadores rode into the Valley of Mexico to the accompaniment of an erupting volcano and the Conquistadores March. For decades, I have wanted to see the film remade with Part 2 of the book included, where the indigenous people fought back, and fought back hard. Samuel Shellabarger was a Professor of Medieval European history and based his book on the writings of chroniclers of the conquest with a small number of fictional characters thrown in to explain why men left Spain for the New World. History as written by the victors and the clergy who wrote of the conquest were as biased as those who wrote of the savaery of the Vikings 'the Great Heathen Army'. In truth, the Conquistadors did not have it all their own way. Several chapters were devoted to the flight from Tenochtitlan over the causeways where the booty laden Spaniards drowned. I guess 'Hernàn' is about as near as we will get to a remake. More Apocalypto than A Captain form Castile, it nevertheless focuses on the indigenous people and their tragic conquest by a better armed bunch of opportunist thugs claiming to be God's army and with the blessing of the Spanish crown. Their only true creed being 'Greed is good'. I definitely agree with the other posters who disliked the flash back and flash forward storyline as it is hard to follow, but I particularly liked the use of Maya, Nahuatle and Spanish, and the costumes were excellent. Without the flash forwarding and back, it could have been a really memorable series.

I loved this show so much that I stayed up all night watching Season one on ROKU, and would have watched the rest of Season two if it had not switched to a paid show. I guess the first day was free to get you back for more. My reason for 8 stars is that the show was cancelled as it did not attract enough viewers. When will the producers begin to realise that an audience which enjoys a serious program about science or medicine, is not interested in the shenanigans of the bored wives, and an audience which enjoys the soapy drama of extra marital affairs, marriages in trouble, unwanted pregnancies, teenage romances and such, is bored to tears with the serious part? The poducers need to make up their minds which kind of audience they are aiming for and stop trying to wear two or more hats. The ramped up fictional drama was unnecessary, as the story of the development of the atomic bomb was dramatic enough without team leaders disappearing into psychcological torture prisons, and last minute confrontations in the tower before the first test. Perhaps eminent mathemeticians were shot by trigger happy privates who only saw an Asian face. Perhaps the team leader disappeared and his wife managed to get out of Los Alamos and go all the way to Princeton to request Albert Einstein's help in finding where he was being held, and get back to Los Alamos before anyone realised she had sneaked out. Perhaps, but the drama did not ring true. Nor did the spy killer private who could not keep his mouth shut. Because the series was dragged out, we never got to see the aftermath of the first test, as the scientists had been kidding themselves that it would not be used on innocent civilans, then a few days later two cities were obliterated. The first explosion showed three main characters facing the blast out in the open without their protective black goggles, and even opening their eyes! Give me a break. One thing the series did convey very well was the claustrophobic atmosphere of the hastily built compound in the desert where families were located thousands of miles from their homes and family, and subjected a military discipline by a military police who seemed to think they were running a detention camp for enemy aliens. No one could enter or leave without a pass, and the scentists and families were not allowed to leave at all, although some seemed to managed clandestinely. Any infringment of military orders was considered treason. Telephones lines were tapped and switchboard operators listened in on every call. Mail was censored and may not be forwarded. Some homes were bugged in case anyone spoke of what they were working on. It is a great piity that the series was cancelled, as the aftermath of the first test would have made a great series.

Despite other unenthusiastic reviews, I enjoyed this film. I know it was an OK time waster, but how many films are made on the Amazon Rver and centered on Manaus. I think Fitzcarraldo was the last and that was not set on the actual Amazon, but on a tributary. The stunning scenery alone made the film worth watching. The plot was 'Death on the Nile'. A disparate tour group of travellers are introduced, and the first part of the film is dedicated to who's who, most of whom are running away from something. Then the two bad guys arrive paying cash for their tickets. All that was missing was Hercules Porfirio, the detective who would wrap up the case after lining up the surviors on deck. I thought the crooks went to a lot of trouble for a measly million dollars which might have been a big deal in the twenties, but 100 years later is chicken fee. .

Once again, a retelling of events in the past is viewed and skewed by a production team who were not around at the time, and how they got so much of it so wrong. I was in my 20's at the time and remember the details of the affair clearly. Crowds of reporters outside the courts, their homes, everywhere they went reporting on what they were wearing, who had done their hair, nails, make up down to the last detail - just as the Daily Mail still does with celebrities today. There are enough old newsreels and newspaper articles in the archives for the writers and wardrobe people to have done their homework and got it right.

The Profumo affair was a major, major event which dominated the tabloid press for a couple of years in the early 60's. Everyone and his brother was selling their story to the press. The similarity between Stephen Ward and Jeffrey Epstein is striking, especially given the different attitudes of the time and the treatment of the girls. Ward became the fall guy due to his embarrassing the establishment, and after his suicide, Christine Keeler became the scapegoat because SOMEONE had to be punished. Just as Ghislaine Maxwell became the target after Espstein gave justice the slip.

My problems were not just with the constant confusing flashbacks, but with the miscasting of Sophie Cookson as Christine. The physical appearance and in particular the voice were all wrong. Christine was tall and slender, well groomed with a very low voice, not the shrill piping of a short rather dumpty actress with either a bad wig or messy hair, looking as if she had just got out of bed. It might have been the script, but Ms. Cookson played her as a none-too-bright low class girl totally out of her depth - an uneducated girl with aspirations of being a model or showgirl but drawn to the seamy world of Notting Hill, and criminals like slumloard Peter Rachman - her own worst enemy. There were many small details where a bit of research would have helped. The affair and notoriety ruined Christine's life and she eked out the rest of her life in a council flat, living on welfare at times.

The current 'woke' sensibility just couldn't be left out with a speech by Valerie Profumo on how men treated women badly. Cue the violins. The depiction of London as a dark seedy underworld rather than conveying the optimistic city of bright lights was probably intentional as 'swinging London' was still just around the corner, and the world of Ward's girls was on the fringes of the underworld - showgirls and hostesses in drinking clubs catering to men with money looking for a taste of the forbidden. Theirs was the world of Ruth Ellis. While Christine, and Mandy may not have been prostitutes, their friends Paula Hamilton Marshall and Ronnie Ricardo certainly were and it would only take a snap of the fingers and running out of rent money to tip them into the life.

I watched the film yesterday because it was set on a farm in 'north Yorkshire', and because the critics were raving about it. It turned out that it was set in the West Riding area between Keithly and Bradford - my childhood home turf. The performances of Ian Hart as a cloth capped sour-tempered 'Dad' and Gemma Jones as the long suffering grandma were absolutely perfect, but the film was ruined for me because of the very graphic gay sex leaving nothing to the imagination. What really annoyed me was that they did not have to show ANYTHING graphic to get the message across - the drama was enough. It could all have been done with a mere suggestion, like when a couple go into a bedroom and the scene fades out on a closing door. So we had a gay couple - holding hands and eye contact was all we needed. The dramatic story was extremely good, a lonely young man, who had been forced to leave school early, trapped into hard labor on a small family farm which he really wasn't interested in but his grumpy old father was incapacitated by a stroke and someone had to take care of things. His school friends had gone on to university leaving him behind, but he had no education to do anything else and was managing the farm alone. He spent his nights in the pub getting very drunk, and picking up strange men, until he hired a young and capable Romanian to help with the lambing season. As a physiological drama, rather like 'the Servant' as the more assured hired help began to show him how to care for the lambs and other livestock and became the dominant partner, it was very excellent drama, and I particularly liked hearing the Bradford area colloquialisms which I have not heard for decades, but we don't need to see someone vomiting into the toilet, urinating, or having gay sex in a toilet or rolling around naked in a field with another man. If I had been the editor, it would have been a very different film. I don't know what they are trying to do these days. It certainly isn't entertaining. I loved the way Ian Hart played the father, with never a word of praise or thanks for his son, just sour negative comments, until a grudging thank you at the end. When the son had sold off a bull (or cow) at the local auction, he gave his dad £700, but instead of a thank you the father told him off because the dry stone wall need repairing. It was one complaint after another, putting the lad down. I have known many like him. The scenery was beautiful though. I gave the film 5 stars due to the superb acting and the way the bleakness of the location and Johnny's life were conveyed, but I thought the drama could have stood alone without being so graphic.

Just what we need after the graphic sex and violence over-excess of 'Outlander' and 'Game of Dragons" A gentle romantic comedy with two late middle aged retirees trekking through rural Australia solving simple ethically ambiguous crimes as they go, with gently bickering witty repartee. Darby and Joan being the perfect title. Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi show that over 60's have still got it and make a very attractive couple without resorting to full frontal nudity and waggling bare bottoms. The two of them are so perfectly matched one would think they had 'been together now for 40 years and it don't seem a day too much'. OK, the plots are simple, but if we need violent crime all we have to do is read tody's papers. I loved the line "My sister was married to Darby a few wives back!"

Although many reviews have placed the setting in the outback, it is set in the Queensland costal area.

While this film had a lot of promise at first, I was concerned by the poor wrapping up of elements of the plot, and the near darkness and gloom of both exteriors and interiors. Having lived in Scotland, I know how dreary it can be in the spring, fall, and winter months due to the weaker sunlight, shorter days and the clouds gathering for rain every day, but it did not help when the only light for the interiors came form the windows leaving the characters in shadow or silhouette. I put this down to perhaps a very low budge, and assumed they couldn't afford to light the set. The other main problem was the lack of wrapping up of promising plot leads. I had to go to Wikipedia to find out why and what were the reasons for some of the twists. Even then, was he an intenational mercenary, or spy. Did the divorced parents get back together? Did the new boy friend get the shove? What was his job for the oil companies? Why was his office ransacked? I know Americans are criticisd for wanting happy endings but even without a happy ending, we need a plot to go somewhere without dangling red herrings.

Having worked in a small family printing business in the 1950's, which had not been updated in at least 100 years, I was impressed by the detail of the 18th century print shop and wondered if the scenes were filmed on a set, or in a a historic museum. Either way, the set and costumes are out of this world.

Please, please, will someone pull the plug and kill off this meandering show. The plot is all over the place, lookalike characters wander in now and then with no backstory to follow. Potentially good storylines are left dangling with no followup. Most of the characters look alike so we cannot tell which dark curly haired woman and which tattooed biker is which, and the dialogue is slow enough to catch cold. In short, it is BORING! Stories are not followed up in a timely manner. The unbalanced Agent Potter was at least watchable, but he has disappeared completely. The fate of Adelita's baby was a major cliffhanger in Season 3. We caught a swift glimpse in Season 4, which will probably have to do for the next four or five episodes. To hold the viewers' interest, stories need to be considtent and followed up in a timely fashion - a beginning, a middle and an end!. This is not happening with Mayans and the slow dialog doesn't help. Season 1 was good, Season 2 not bad, but by Season 4 is has gone downhill in a hurry.

Having enjoyed the series of books by Alex Rutherford, I was excited to find the books had been filmed. Unfortunately the TV adaptation veered some way from the books, condensing storylines and even changing the name of a mjor character. Added to the flash backs and non linear continuity, I found that I was unable to follow the plot at times. It is not unusual for books to be consdensed and story lines to be alterred and merged in order to fit the time frame, in fact it is standard, so I can live the changes. But what I did find problematic and distracting was the casting of Indian actors as Mongols. Compared to the epic Kazakh Khanate, a superior series from Kazakhstan, it was like watching an all Japanese version of Fiddler on the Roof - it jarred! Most irritating was the inclusion in Episode 4 of Season 1, of a Bollywood dance number. This was not a Hollywood musical and I doubt that the Mongol conquerors indulged in chorus lines. The critics calling this a Game of Thrones knockoff need to study their history. GOT was a rip off of most Royal Dynastic power struggles of the last 2000 years. - from Rome, Egypt, the Normans, Plantangents, the Capets, the Tudors, et al.

Other than that, the series was beautiful to watch, with the handsome actors, the clothes and expecially the old buldings and beautiful mosques. Eye Candy for a wet weeknight.

This intriguing series had overtones of Dr. Zhivago and the Russian series Ancestral Land. The story of a Ukrainian family spans 100 years, beginning with their lives as peasant farmers doing quite comfortably, until WW1 and the revolution almost destroys them. Stripped of their land, and in one case executed for owing property, the family faces dreadful hardships in an attempt to survive. I almost didn't get beyond the first episode as the events were too depressing, but things picked up for a while, until WW2 and the German occupation turned everything upside down again. Still, the family soldiers on through trials and tribulations, some successes and some setbacks. For someone who knew little about Ukraine, it was very enlightening to see how the people lived.

I originally awarded the series 10 stars, but on second thoughts knocked off two for the constant recasting of the characters every ten years which was confusing, especially as the family had grown during the generations. Had it not been for the scar on the face of one of the sons, I would not have known who he was as he aged. Vaselynya had red hair, Petya wore thick glasses, and another character was blonde, but that was it. It might have helped if the replacements had resembled the originals. It is not necessary to rotate the actors as a good actor can play youth to old age just by body language, bright eyed and perky in youth, slow and stooped in age. It was as if every actor in Ukraine was included in the production to give them exposure, but it was hard on the audience trying to keep track .

I had never heard of this series and found it by accident as a suggestion after watching 'The Accursed Kings' on a streaming service which I will not name in case the series is blocked before I can rewatch it. The series is not for bingeing! It needs to be watched slowly to give each episode time to sink in. As I need captions due to hearing loss, I took off one star for the inferior automatic captions which seemed to be translating a different show at times.

I won't go into the 'plot' as anyone who has studied history, Shakespeare and countless dramas of the Platangenets will be well familiar with the events. I have to praise the brilliant originality of the sets, which I dismissed at first as too theatrical with backgrounds on the level of the school play, but as I watched more, I realised that the stageiness and painted backdrops were intended to evoke a medieaval manuscript, and it worked beautifully, especially on the small screens of the time. Confining the action to a very small area also made it more immediate and drew in the audience as if we were eavesdropping. Sometimes a scene would begin as an illustration with an illuminated frame around the edge, then as the camera zoomed in the figures would begin to move and we would be drawn into the scene. This worked very effectively in the representations of battles as set pieces. When three European monarchs were discussing the fate of Richard the Lionheart who had been captured in Austria despite the free passage guaranteed by the church to Crusaders, they were seated on their thrones side by side in the flat manner of paintings of the time. I could watch it all again for the sets alone. The sets were no loss effective for being 'budget' but showed how much originality can flourish when forced to economise.

My only other complaint ( losing one star) was not with the series itself, but with the quality of the recording currently shown on TV. In 1978, the BBC and ITV were producing some fine dramas such as I Claudius and Fall of Eagles, with sharp clear definition. The Devil's Crown appears to be from a French copy. This may be exactly what it is and the original may have been destroyed as the BBC tended to reuse video tape. I did hear that the series was thought to be lost for many years, so what has turned up may well be a copy made by a viewer. What is needed especially in this time of production halted due to the pandemic, is for a cleaned up restored copy with new captioning or subtitles with which we could sit by the fire and watch a DVD. Games of Thrones fans would have a field day seeing the real stuff.

The movie evoked Kubrick's 'The Shining ' in the depiction of a cold empty stately home where a rigidly traditional Christmas gathering was held each year and cheerlessly celebrated by a family unable to deviate from antiquated rituals in any way. The massive kitchen lacking the traditional smells of Christmas fare, food having been prepared elsewhere, the staff marching around like soldiers drilling, the long empty corridors, the clothing to be worn each day chosen in advance and labeled, and most of all, the freezing cold bleak winter Norfolk countryside. One longed for the cozy living rooms of the average family home with a blazing log fire as the family squeezed around the table loaded with Christmas dinner, having a spontaneous good time.

One of the best scenes was the confrontation between the uncompromising Major Gregory (Timothy Spall) and the nonconformist Princess as he lectured her about duty.

The filming, art direction and acting was superb other than the excruciating performance of Kristen Stewart as the self absorbed Diana. The posturing: head on one side, coyly gazing from under her eyelashes, the constantly hunched shoulders, and the fragile shy act, as when she got lost on the way to Sandringham, came across as phony and made me want to give her a good hard slap and tell her to grow up. I know Diana was supposed to be fragile or mentally unstable, take your pick, but I think Stewart overdid the 'fragile' acting and left out the manipulative selfish side of a woman who had got what she wanted in snagging the country's most eligible bachelor, but wanted her own way 'or else' and worked to upstage him at every turn. IF the real Diana acted this way, Charles could certainly not be blamed for going back to Camilla.

I first saw the Flame Trees of Thika 40 years ago and had forgotten what a superb program it was. I just saw it again on Acorn TV and it is a real feast for the eyes. Made on location in Kenya with actors playing their own nationality, Scots playing Scots, Dutch playing South African Boers, and Kenyan actors and native tribespeople playing the Kenyans, and real wildlife (lots and lots of wildlife) . The location scenery is stunning and amost a travelogue for Kenya. Ben Cross, who passed away last year was in his 30's and ruggedly handsome as a horse trader/safari leader. The acting was top notch. Although set in the early 20th centurywhen Kenya was being colonised by aristocratic second sons and former military officers of the British empire, this is not The Happy Valley of White Mischief - more the second class settlers who are very hard working farmers struggling to establish coffee plantations and farm animals and doing the work themmselves, tatherr than appointing stewards. I plan to buy the DVD to keep on hand for when the series on no longer available on TV.

Unfortunately the first episode on Acorn does not have captions, and has an inferior picture, but I persevered and the subsequent episodes had both captions and a better picture. There is a disclaimer to the effect that certain scenes and lanaguage are counter to what is acceptable today and may offend some people. I don't know what was offensive - colonial rule in East Africa was what it was and we did not see any atrocities or brutalities carried out by the white settlers, nor was there any bad language or graphic sex, so the series could be enjoyed by the whole family.

The sets and costumes were excellent, as were the locations and battle scenes. The biggest problems I found with the series were the severe changes and truncations of the book, the short length, and most of all, the miscasting. The actors tried their best, but in some cases were just wrong for their parts. Edward III, despite setting off the hundred years war, was one of England's greatest Kings, if not THE greatest, and ruled for 50 years. We have him to thank for the English language being the official language, and many laws establishing stabilty in the country. He was well built, tall and fair with the exceptional good looks of the Plantagenets and his Viking ancestors. He ascended to the throne at the age of 14 and lost no time in getting rid of his mother's lover and banishing her for the rest of he life. He was portrayed in the series as a melancholic dark haired slightly built monkish actor. Aunt Petronilla, a minor character in the book, may have been a sour stepmother but, never murdered anyone. Characters were merged, Philemon with Godwyn who then had double duty as murdering blackguard. Petronilla merged with Alice, the sister of Caris, who married Eldric - not Caris, Edmond, father of Caris was not hanged. Thomas of Langley only briefly appeared in the book and if he was King Edward II, I missed it. Phillipa did not commit suicide but tolerated Ralph while having an affair with Merthyn. The Italian period was over in two minutes, and worst of all, the timing of the Black Death was 10 years too soon. Added to that, little if any building took place, other than being talked about.

Although I understand changing the story and merging the characters to fit into 8 episodes, it was changed far too much. The series would have been better with at least 26 episodes to cover all the twists and turns, illegitimate babies, who's the Daddy, secret sons, adulterous relationships, plotting and conniving, instead it seemed more like the abridged theater version of a foreign language TV series which several countries put out. It would also have been far better to stick to the book. The rating is for the sets and costumes.