The day of the doctor (50th anniversary special)

(Amazon UK link)

We finished re-watching Doctor Who series 7 around a week ago. It ends with Matt Smith as the 11th doctor seeing the place where he will eventually die, but with no sign of regenerating. That happens before series 8, but in between the two series were a couple of ‘special’ episodes. We saw them in 2016 on a relative’s streaming system in 2016, but I decided to acquire the DVDs after that, as we enjoyed them both and I was pretty sure we would eventually want to re-watch them.

A decade later, we allowed longer than usual and watched ‘The day of the Doctor’, which was broadcast as the 50th anniversary ‘special’. I had forgotten, until we started watching, that it featured not just Matt Smith, but David Tennant who returned specially, as well as Billie Piper.  I had forgotten everything else about it, too…

The episode begins with the Doctor and Clara (Jenna Coleman) having rather an undignified ride over London when the tardis is requisitioned by UNIT, in particular by Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave). She wants them to investigate some 3d paintings which have apparently been vandalised… from inside. 

Shakespeare Retold (2005)

(Amazon UK link)

Many years ago, at a charity fair, I bought a DVD called ‘Shakespeare retold’. We’ve quite enjoyed productions of Shakespeare plays over the years, both live ones, and adaptations on film, such as ‘Twelfth Night’ and ‘Midsummer night’s dream’; both those are set in the 19th century rather than the 16th, but otherwise are true to the originals, using the same text.

What we hadn’t realised is that this BBC series consists of modernised stories, based very loosely on Shakespeare’s originals. So there’s almost none of the 17th century dialogue, although names of some of the characters are the same or similar to those used by Shakespeare.

The first one we watched one evening when we wanted something reasonably light, and not too long. It’s based on the play ‘Much ado about nothing’, which neither of us was very familiar with. It’s set in a TV news studio, primarily. The main characters, as in Shakespeare’s original, are called Beatrice (Sarah Parish) and Benedick (Damian Lewis). They have some history, as is clear from a brief opening sequence, and the director has decided to reunite them on screen as news anchors after someone else loses his job. 

Doctor Who series 2 (David Tennant)

(Amazon UK link)

We finished watching the first 21st century series of Doctor Who (with Christopher Eccleston in the title role) in mid October. So it was time to move on to Series 2. We found these DVDs individually in a thrift store, more than twelve years ago. So we don’t actually have a box set as such, which means there are no ‘extras’. But that isn’t really a problem. I don’t think we even noticed the lack the first time we watched them, early in 2012. 

The first DVD has just two episodes, including the Christmas special which introduced the new Doctor; the others each have three episodes.

The Christmas invasion

This ‘special’, introducing David Tennant as the 10th doctor, was shown on Christmas Day 2005. We first see Rose’s mother Jackie (Camille Coduri) preparing a Christmas meal. She does so rather poignantly, as she thinks about her missing daughter. Then she hears the sound of the tardis, and her hopes rise..

Rose (Billie Piper) emerges with the doctor, who, of course, Jackie doesn’t recognise. And he’s very weak from the regeneration. I don’t recall that happening with subsequent doctors; not as seriously as this, anyway. He’s in a coma in Jackie’s flat while Rose and her boyfriend Mickey (Noel Clarke) become involved with some very stressful attacks from ‘Santa’ robots. 

It turns out that the robots are scouts for some dangerous aliens in a spaceship who want to destroy a significant number of the world’s population. The one scene I had remembered from our previous viewing of this episodes was thousands of people, walking like zombies, right to the edge of the roof of high-rise flats. As one with a phobia of heights, the thought of this was quite terrifying. 

I liked seeing Penelope Wilton as the prime minister in this episode, taking her role very seriously in a way that made us smile. I also very much enjoyed seeing David Tennant, when he finally gets over his coma. At first he acts a lot like Christopher Eccleston in his smiles, his manner of speaking and his way of relating to Rose. Naturally he solves the problem, and it seems that everything is ending happily until Harriet makes a decision that the Doctor is very annoyed about...

New Earth

The second episode on the first DVD sees the Doctor and Rose travel many thousand years into the future, to a ‘new’ earth - created after the first one was destroyed (shown in series one, episode two). They are relaxing in clean air, looking at happy people and flying cars… and they’re being stalked by a mechanical spider, controlled by someone who wants to know why they are there.

The one thing I recalled from this episode is a hospital manned by feline nurses. I hadn’t remembered anything else about who they meet, or the very disturbing way in which the nurses were managing to cure even the most lethal or dangerous of diseases. It’s an exciting episode, one where both David Tennant and Billie Piper have to demonstrate a bit of extra acting talent (which they do extremely well). 

Tooth and Claw

The first episode on the second DVD in the series is very well done, we thought. It’s a historical one, set in 1979 Scotland, rather than 1979, where the tardis had planned to travel. This episode features an excellent Queen Victoria (Pauline Collins). She is temporarily staying in a stately home where something terrifying is going on... 

School Reunion

The second episode on the second DVD starts off a bit lighter. It features The Doctor as a new physics teacher in a school where strange things have been happening. Rose's boyfriend Micky is involved, and although some of this episode is a bit gross, we still thought it was very well done.

The Girl in the Fireplace

The next episode has a clever and rather involved plot. It involves a mixture of a spaceship and characters in 18th century France, including some who were real people. There are also mechanical 'people' who are rather spooky but, once again, this is an excellent episode. The ones involving historical characters are some of my favourites.

The second DVD could stand alone, and might be a good introduction to Doctor Who if someone didn’t want to start at the beginning. We like re-watching them in order, as there are recurring characters and mentions of previous situations.

Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel 

The third DVD begins with a two-parter, which we watched in one evening. I really don’t like leaving these episodes on a cliff-hanger, and there was a very dramatic one at the end of the first part. 

I never did like the cybermen. It turns out, in this story, that they are taking over a parallel universe where the Doctor and Rose have landed, accidentally, through a breach, in the equivalent of London. The tardis has to recharge before they can leave. Rose finds that her father isn't just alive in this universe, but has become a big star. And he seems to have some connection with the big businessman who wants to 'upgrade' everyone into cyberpeople.

Then Rose's boyfriend Micky, also travelling in the tardis, is mistaken for his parallel person Ricky. These episodes are quite chilling, disturbing at times, but I very much liked the human interest parts, and thought they were extremely well done.

The Idiot’s Lantern

Episode 7 of the series, last on the third DVD, is set in London (in the normal universe) in 1953. The Queen is about to be crowned, and people are keen to get televisions. But some areas seem to have a huge number of TVs for the era. One particular salesman is making far more sales than would be expected.

There are bizarre disappearances, and something strange and disturbing happens to people who watch TV…

This episode is lighter than the Cybermen two-parter, with a positive ending. It’s also quite thought-provoking, although the usual dangers of too much screen-time are not as excessive as those portrayed in this episode!

We didn't watch the next two episodes on this DVD, either the first time we saw Series 2, or more recently. One of our sons had warned us that if we found cybermen scary, we would have nightmares from this two-part episode. I did read about them, and decided we would avoid them.  It was interesting to learn that they tell a story where the Ood race are introduced - the gentle, servant-hearted aliens who appear in future episodes.

Love and Monsters

The third episode on the fourth DVD, 10th in series 2, is quite light-hearted, with one or two scenes that made us smile. Rose's mother Jackie is involved, and the story is told by a young man called Elton who is filming a video in vlog format about his experiences. He and a group of four other people were involved in researching all they could about The Doctor, but gradually they started doing other things together, and became quite close. 

Then they're taken over by a very controlling man who - as is clear from the start - is not who he appears to be. He tries to make them focus on their ‘real’ purpose, and does so in highly coercive ways. This episode, like so many others in the series, is  very well made, and the main alien (apparently designed by a schoolboy for a competition) is bizarre enough not to be taken seriously, even though he's very dangerous.

The Doctor and Rose don't come into this episode as much as usual, but we enjoyed it anyway.

Fear her

And so to the final DVD in this series, with the last three episodes. The Doctor takes the tardis to 2012, shortly before the London Olympics, which they are planning to watch. They learn that the street where they arrive is full of fear, as children have been disappearing. It becomes clear to the viewer (though not, at first, to anyone else) that one little girl has strange powers. Whoever she draws will suddenly vanish. 

This, we thought was a very thought-provoking episode. There’s an alien (off screen entirely) who isn’t nearly as disturbing as it first appears. And there’s a human (also off screen) who is much more dangerous than the alien…

Army of Ghosts and Doomsday

Unsurprisingly, this series ends with another two-parter, and once again we watched both parts in one evening. The Doctor and Rose land in London again, only to find that every day some ‘ghosts’ appear. They seem to be harmless and amicable; Rose’s mother Jackie is certain that the one in her kitchen is her long-dead father. The Doctor knows this isn’t right and manages to trace the origin to Torchwood Tower. 

There are cybermen and daleks, infiltrating the world, and potentially leading to its doom. The Doctor manages a last-minute solution, but it means that Rose is forever separated from him, although with her other loved ones. There are some quite emotional scenes towards the end; I was quite engrossed in this story, and found it very moving.

Overall, we enjoyed this series very much. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Doctor Who Series 1 (Christopher Eccleston)

(Amazon UK link)

Although the 21st century Doctor Who revival started in 2005, we didn’t watch the first series until 2011. Since then we have gradually acquired DVDs of the various seasons and ‘specials’. We finally caught up with ourselves in June this year, when we saw the 60th anniversary specials that followed the 13th series, ‘Flux’. At that stage, there were no more DVDs to be bought. 

So we decided that we would re-watch from the beginning, starting in the middle of August when we were both back in Cyprus after travelling. It’s going to be a lengthy process, watching Doctor Who one evening per week, so we agreed that sometimes we would watch two episodes in an evening. 

Disc One

The first episode of Season One, just called ‘Rose’, is, I thought, very well done. We first meet a young woman (Billie Piper) who works in a big department store. At the end of the day, she has to take something down to the basement… and very peculiar things start happening with the display mannequins. Then her hand is grabbed by a strange man, who rushes her away and saves her. Christopher Eccleston tells her he is ‘The Doctor’, and leaves her to go home. 

But he hasn’t stopped the danger. Rose’s boyfriend Mickey (Noel Clark) is somehow assimilated and cloned, and once again the Doctor comes to the rescue - although Rose has to rescue him, too. Little bits of information about the Doctor are cleverly introduced for the benefit of anyone who was not familiar with the series before. It’s a dramatic episode, with a bit of humour here and there to lighten the mood.

The second episode, ‘The End of the World’ sees the Doctor taking Rose several billion years into the future, to the moment half an hour before the Earth is due to be destroyed. They arrive on a spaceship with many different representatives of a variety of alien races, including the last ‘human’, Lady Cassandra. She has had so many surgeries to preserve her essence that she looks nothing like a human. Inevitably there are more dangers, and sabotage, and more information about the Doctor is revealed, including the fact that his own planet (Gallifrey) no longer exists.

In the third episode, the Doctor takes Rose to the 19th century where they discover an alien force trying to take over the bodies of people who had recently died. I found it  a bit disturbing at first, but the episode is lightened by their meeting with Charles Dickens. He is played to perfection by Simon Callow, who apparently loves Dickens, and has acted his character many times. The ‘extras’ on the first DVD mention that the Doctor has not previously been shown with historical figures, although in the previous incarnations he sometimes mentioned having met them. Historical figures play a significant role in many of the later ‘new’ seasons: I had not realised that the 20th century episodes did not include these. 

Disc Two

The second DVD in our box set has three episodes. It’s a good thing we allowed the time to watch two of them, as the first two are a dual-part episode. ‘Aliens of London’ begins with Rose discovering that she’s been away for longer than expected. Then a spaceship crash-lands in the Thames, after destroying the clock face of Big Ben. This is the episode where the ‘Slitheen’ are introduced. I found them quite scary when we first saw them, thirteen years ago. This time they looked rather dated, and much less intimidating. 

There’s some humour in the episode as well as tension, and it ends on such a cliffhanger that I would have wanted to see the sequel at once, even if it had been late. That episode, ‘World War Three’, resolves the issue, as we expected. It also includes some good scenes with Rose’s mother Jackie (Camille Coduri) and also her boyfriend Mickey. Harriet Jones (Penelope Wilton) is introduced, as a backbencher with political ambitions. We thought she was excellent, providing some of the light relief as well as aiding in the eventual solution. 

I was not looking forward to Episode Six (third on the second DVD), simply entitled ‘Dalek’. Of all the Doctor Who enemies, the daleks are the ones who terrify me the most. But it was a very good episode. The Doctor and Rose land in a kind of museum of aliens, and discover the final dalek in existance. It is being tested and tortured to try to make it speak, but only in the presence of the Doctor does it find its voice. By the end, I almost (though not quite) found myself feeling sorry for this dalek… 

Disc Three

The third DVD begins with episode Seven, ‘The Long Game’, which features a satellite populated with humans many thousands of years in the future. They are apparently all happy, and are broadcasting news around the universe. I had vaguely remembered some of what transpired; it’s perhaps a warning not to accept the status quo, and to be suspicious of ‘promotion’ which nobody is allowed to speak about.

‘Father’s Day’ is the next episode, one I thought particularly engaging. Rose asks to go back in time to the day her father died. She’s warned about the dangers of time travel to one’s own past, and that it might be traumatic for her. But the Doctor doesn’t take into account Rose’s emotional reaction to seeing her father hit by a car. And then it becomes rather disturbing, with results quite at odds with the principles established in the very different ‘Quantum Leap’ series. But I very much liked the background into Rose’s life, and the scenes involving her mother Jackie.

It’s a good thing we had plenty of time the following week when we watched ‘The Empty Child’, another episode that’s full of human interest. The Doctor and Rose arrive in London during the Blitz, to find odd things happening after a strange object landed near a hospital. Jack Harkness, another time traveller from the distant future, is introduced in this episode. I recalled him appearing every so often throughout the series, with a mixed kind of relationship with the Doctor and his companions. John Barrowman is excellent as a charming rogue who rather bewitches Rose, and makes the Doctor oddly jealous.

That episode ended on such a cliffhanger that we immediately watched its sequel,’The Doctor Dances’. Again there’s a lot of human interaction and some insights into the London Blitz. For instance, we see a young girl, stealing from wealthy houses during air raids in order to feed hungry boys. And the conclusion of this double episode was, we both thought, very well done and entirely satisfactory. 

Disc Four

The fourth DVD in our box set contains the last three episodes of Series One. The first, ‘Boom Town’ takes place in Cardiff. The Doctor, Rose and Jack think they’re just relaxing for a few hours while the Tardis recharges. But it’s quite a stressful episode, featuring an alien whom the Doctor thought had been fully destroyed. There are some interesting exchanges and it’s impossible to know who can be trusted. There’s also some emotional turmoil as Rose catches up with her former boyfriend Mickey.

Then there’s another two-parter to end the series: ‘Bad Wolf’ and ‘The Parting of the Ways. The Doctor, Jack and Rose are back on the satellite of episode Seven, a hundred years later. This time it’s broadcasting game shows, many of them spoofs on real television game shows. But there’s a drastic end for anyone eliminated from the competitions. It’s quite a complex storyline involving some unexpected terrible enemies and the potential destruction of the human race.

The climax of ‘The Parting of the Ways’ is a bit ‘deus ex machina’ but well done nonetheless, after some humorous attempts on Rose’s part (helped by Mickey) to open up the tardis. What happens is far from amusing, and I’m not sure I entirely understood the significance. But in the end, as we knew would happen, The Doctor is unable to continue as he is, and regenerates into a very young-looking David Tennant. 

There are a couple of interesting ‘extras’ on this last DVD of the set. One of them looks at the incredible detail put into the creation of the sets (in particular the tardis) and some of the aliens. I’m astounded that anyone would spend so much time and effort on things that were only needed for one episode, but the people involved loved what they were doing. The second extra is by John Barrowman, talking about Jack - I found that rather more interesting, but then what matters for me is the human interest part of the show. 

Three things struck me overall, watching these episodes again, thirteen years after we first saw them. One is that the pace is rather slower than it was in the later series. I liked the slower pace very much, as it makes the stories so much easier for me to follow. 

The second thing I noticed is that the Tardis looks oddly old-fashioned! It reminded me somewhat of the 1960s Tardis, which, perhaps, was deliberate. By the thirteenth series, it had been modernised and transformed many times.

The third is that, although I thought Christopher Eccleston did a good job as the ninth Doctor, he seemed quite hard in the earlier episodes. He did soften in the later ones, and I thought he was an excellent choice to introduce Doctor Who to a 21st century audience. 

Rose, we thought, was a very good companion. We weren’t too sure the first time around, as she looks a bit too like some of the rather fluffy companions of the past. But she has lots of determination and ideas, and The Doctor is evidently very taken with her. We’re glad to recall that she remains as companion to the Tenth Doctor in Series Two, which we hope to start watching next week. 

I would recommend this series very highly to anyone who likes this kind of TV show. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Doctor Who, the complete Fourth series (David Tennant, Catherine Tate)

(Amazon UK link)

Long before we reached the end of Doctor Who series Three, I had put Series Four on my wishlist, and was given it for my birthday last year. So we were able to start watching Series Four almost immediately. But with lack of time and other commitments, it has taken us about six months to complete it.

Season Four is the last full season with David Tennant as the Doctor. There is a great first episode featuring Kylie Minogue, of all people, as a waitress called Astrid. She would have made a good companion to the Doctor - they got along extremely well - but alas, it was not to be.

Donna - Catherine Tate - appears in episode Two (out of fourteen in all), a quirky and somewhat amusing one featuring some weight loss pills, and the cute aliens known as adipose (which can now be bought as Doctor Who Adipose Plush). Donna had appeared briefly in the Christmas Special at the start of Series Three, but had been absent from the show since then.

I didn't much like Donna at first. She seemed a bit feeble and not particularly intelligent. However, her lack of romantic interest in the Doctor was quite refreshing, after Rose and Martha, and she grew in confidence as the series progressed. By the last few episodes she had become - as another companion put it - the most important person in creation. By the final exciting two-part episodes Donna had shown herself to be a loyal and brilliant companion... which made her eventual departure from the show, in the last episode, really rather sad in the way that it happened.

There are threads running through this whole series which make it more complicated than the old ones I used to watch from behind the sofa. Yet there are still quite a mixture - from the cuddly Adipose to the terrifying Vashta Nerada, not to mention the ancient daleks with their battle cry 'exterminate'. Daleks still make me shudder and want to hide, like I did as a child.

Lots of companions re-appear in this series, including one from the Doctor's future (should that be 'pre-appear?') in a spooky episode involving a vast library, some terrifyingly tiny aliens, and a small girl. Then there's a delightfully light-weight episode featuring Agatha Christie (at a house-party hosted by a society lady played by Felicity Kendall) and a script which includes a large number of titles of Agatha Christie's books. There's a giant wasp, too, which could have been terrifying but somehow didn't ever feel quite real.

David Tennant is brilliant throughout. It's hard to imagine how he can ever be bettered.

The final DVD - out of six - contains a wonderful documentary, seeing into the lives of those involved in the show, with script-reading, filming and post-production.

All in all, this is great stuff and we are now complete fans of Doctor Who. I just wish I had known sooner that there are some extra episode from 2009 which are chronologically between Series Four and Series Five. I was given Series Five for Christmas, but we need to get hold of these specials before we can move on to see Matt Smith as Doctor...

Definitely recommended. Rated 12, which seems about right, as the storylines are complex and some of the ideas are scary, even if the violence is relatively mild compared to much of what passes as entertainment these days. No nudity or sex, unsurprisingly, and only a few instances of minor bad language.

Review copyright Sue's DVD Reviews

Doctor Who, season 2 (David Tennant, Billie Piper)

(Amazon UK link)

We were reluctant watchers, initially, of the new Doctor Who TV series (started in 2005). Our sons persuaded us at least to try out the new style, high-graphic storyline-intensive series. They recommended beginning at the start with the relevant DVDs.

So we bought Doctor Who season 1, and watched it, off and on, through the latter part of 2011. We did like it, but I'm not sure that we would ever have progressed on had it not been for one of our sons spotting four out of the five series 2 DVDs on a church bookstall. So we paid a grand total of four euros for them, ordered the remaining one online. We have just completed watching Season 2 in three months.

I wasn't at all sure that I would like a new Doctor Who after just one season with Christopher Eccleston. He was a very good choice, we thought, and the ending of season 1 was rather over-dramatic.

However, we were very quickly impressed by David Tennant, who stars in Season 2 as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor. In the early episode, he somehow succeeds in acting as if he were Christopher Eccleston. He pulls some of the same expressions, uses the same catchphrases, and relates to his companion Rose (Billie Piper) in the same kind of way. This gradually eases off, but the transition works extremely well and we quickly became fans of David Tennant as the Doctor.

The early episodes, story-wise, are a bit of a mixed bunch. We rather liked the third one, 'Tooth and Claw' where they meet a very believable Queen Victoria (Pauline Collins), despite it having some frightening moments. I also very much enjoyed 'School Reunion', where one of the Doctor's previous companions, Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) re-appears, along with her wonderful mechanical dog, K9, whom I had totally forgotten about.

On the other hand, warned by one of our sons, we did not watch the two-part story 'The Impossible Planet' and 'The Satan Pit'. We were warned that if we found earlier ones scary, we would have nightmares from these two. It was not a difficult decision since neither of us like horror at all. It was bad enough to see the Doctor's old enemies, daleks and cybermen, arise afresh in other storylines.

Yesterday evening we ensured that we had time to watch the final two episodes of Season 2, knowing that they were another two-part story. I'm glad we did, since the first of the two ('Army of Ghosts') ends with a terrifying cliff-hanger. Still, despite the Doctor's worst enemies all appearing, there is some light humour in the episode which helped us relax. The second part is gripping.

We knew it was to be Billie Piper's last appearance, and felt that it was very well done. Rose's mother Jackie (Camille Coduri) plays a bigger part in this than she had done previously, and I was pleased to see Rose's old boyfriend Mickey (Noel Clarke) make a re-appearance. However, the ending is such that I can't see any possibility of Rose or any of her family appearing again.

Then again, one never knows...

I think we're now established as fans, at least in a low-key way, of the new-series Doctor Who. We've already bought Season 3 and look forward to watching it soon.

Review copyright Sue's DVD Reviews

Doctor Who, season 1 (Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper)

(Amazon UK link)

As one who watched Doctor Who from behind the sofa as a child in the 1960s, the 'real' Doctor has to be Patrick Troughton. I accepted Jon Pertwee as his replacement in the early 1970s, and quite liked the long-scarfed Tom Baker in the late '70s. Not that I was a devotee by an means, but I watched now and again, and kept up with the series.

However, when Peter Davison became the fifth Doctor Who in 1981, I gave up entirely. I could not think of him as anyone other than Tristan Farnon, in the 'All Creatures Great and Small' series. Besides, I found it altogether too traumatic watching episode with cybermen and daleks (shudder) and felt nothing but relief when I gave up on Doctor Who.

I gather that the series gradually petered out... and was then re-established in 2005 with a 'new' series, taking advantage of modern computer technology for special effects, and, I was told, much more interesting storylines. But we don't live in the UK, and no matter how much my friends raved about Doctor Who, I was Not Interested.

However, my adult sons both, independently, became fans of the new series. And somehow they managed to convince us to buy the first 'new' series on DVD. They assured us that the modern Doctor Who was more in the vein of 'Quantum Leap' than the old alien-defeating superman kind of theme.

It was with much trepidation that I started watching the series, but I have to admit that they were right. The plots have much more of a human touch than I can remember from the previous series. Christopher Eccleston makes an excellent Doctor. While Billie Piper as his assistant Rose is a bit irritating at times, we got used to her, and quite liked her by the end. We definitely felt sorry for her frustrated well-meaning boyfriend, so often given second place to time travel.

I wasn't happy when daleks made their appearance - they can still incite terror in my heart. My relief at, apparently, the last one being wiped out forever was short-lived. However I loved the episode with Simon Callow as Charles Dickens. There's a fascinating episode which theorises on the terrible consequences of making changes in time travel - rather different from the happy endings of Quantum Leap - which was very thought-provoking.

It took us about six months to watch all thirteen episodes, as life was busy, but we enjoyed them all. They are not as directly frightening as some of the earlier series seemed to me as a child, even if I did hide my face a few times. There's a little humour, some pathos, and some excellent storylines.

The final episode was slightly disappointing; the Doctor seemed to be at his wits' end, and the climax was rather too much 'deus ex machina' for my liking. Perhaps it had to be like that to pave the way for the re-generation of the Doctor into his tenth incarnation...

All in all, well worth watching. We look forward to beginning Series 2 in the new year.

Review copyright Sue's DVD Reviews

Mansfield Park (Billie Piper, Julia Joyce)

(Amazon UK link)

I've liked all the books by Jane Austen, and 'Mansfield Park' is one of my favourites. It features the shy, well-behaved Fanny Price who hero-worships her cousin Edmund. However she faces grave displeasure from her cousins and friends when she stands up for something she believes to be right, despite their attempts to persuade her otherwise.

Jane Austen's novels usually translate well to the screen, particularly (in my view) when made for television. A TV series allows for longer versions than a film to be shown at the cinema.

So when we were given the 2007 ITV version of 'Mansfield Park' by a relative, who found it free with a Sunday paper, I looked forward very much to seeing it.

Unfortunately, this is by a long way the worst adaptation of a Jane Austen novel that I have seen. Billie Piper is a talented actress. But she is totally miscast as the demure, puritanical but kind Fanny Price, and this spoils the entire thing. Piper plays Fanny as a pouting, overly-prudish miss, whom nobody could possibly like.

While the film roughly follows the plot of the book (other than in Fanny Price's personality), there are too many missing characters, in my view. There are also other unnecessary changes which do not really make sense.

In addition, we did not feel that there was any sense of the 18th century at all. Yet it's not a deliberately modern interpretation - which might have been intriguing. Instead, it looks like modern people dressed up in costume. Even the camera work is bizarre at times.

It’s strange how the BBC can make such excellent period drama productions, whereas some of those made for ITV (such as this one) can be much poorer quality. I’m glad we got this free with a newspaper rather than being given it for Christmas or paying for it.

NOT recommended, unless you're a fan of Billy Piper and have not read the book 'Mansfield Park'. 

Review copyright Sue's DVD Reviews