Ooh the thing where Cumberbatch is shagging lots starts tonight!

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

Shallow? Me?

I thought I'd hate it but I love it.

Moving and funny as well. I was laughing a lot, especially at Rufus Sewell. Seen him look better though

Don't know about Michael and Aunty. Is it because a mother like Sylvia is a bad influence on a young boy and his father thought he deserved a loving woman as a mother-figure?

It's all relative. Even a clip round the ear would seem like a loving caress after being left to cry yourself back to sleep after a nightmare.

"I thought I'd hate it but I love it."

I thought I´d love it, but I didn´t.

Couldn´t give a toss about the characters.

It's got some very good reviews if you look at The Times and Guardian websites.

The first programme in a short series like this is always difficult. It has to establish all the characters and their various foibles as well as get the storyline going for the viewer.

I haven't read the books, but read one reviewer who said Sylvia has been softened a lot for the tv series.

I was very disappointed, such a waste of talent. It's based on a trilogy, and they're obviously packing too much into each episode (there are only 5). So - each character has to give lots of exposition and I still didn't understand a lot of it either because I couldn't hear what they were saying, or couldn't understand it.
There's an article about the book in today's Guardian which is a help.

I was bored, expected to love it.

I also thought that Valentine's nice bob was totally anachronistic.

Total pretentious twaddle, bad bad storytelling too. What a disappointment.

Oh I loved it! Love Tom Stoppard's screenplay, wonderful performances etc. I don't think either character is meant to be loveable at the start. I found Downton a bit hit and miss last series so I guess it must be v individual tastes

I loved it too, esp the bit in the mist . agree the sound was a bit sludgy tho.

Like many of you was expecting to love it but didn't, the characters seemed very poorly defined, at this stage anyway. Also thought the hair thing was odd.Not read the books but this didn't make me want to rush out and buy them.
All the critics love it but they all loved Rev and I thought that was just awful.
Going on holiday so will have to record the rest, just not sure I can be bothered.

I was very impressed with Episode One.
The books - a tetralogy, not a trilogy - are just about the best thing I have ever read, and probably would aid a viewing of the series.

And Valentine is meant to have short hair, yes. In fact, I thought all the characters depicted were reasonablely close to how I saw them in the book (except Christopher who is meant to be bulkier and less attractive).

I'm sorry they're not showing more of Christopher's intelligence (and Valentine's too) - their journey to deliver Gertie into safe keeping includes a lot of conversation (and not any quoting from Romeo & Juliet, but I suspect Stoppard didn't want to include their quoting Ovid and comparing Cambridge vs Oxford pronunciation of Latin words, which would have appeared too highbrow).

I am less happy at the amount of affection already shown between C and V since their thoughts of one another are held repressed and restrained to an incredible degree through the novels, but a TV audience does need to see that they are attracted to one another, I guess.

Rufus Sewell as Duchemin was perfect.
And we needed to see that the horse at the end was irreperably injured and bound for the knackers (just to hammer home the collision between the old and the new world that Tietjens is going to have to face).

I was so bored I fell asleep half way through .

Total rubbish I felt, I could slap Sylvia, even if she was a scarlet woman I those days there is no way she would behave like that in front of the servants [ grin]

Afraid I also spent most of it thinking that Valentine's hair looked as though she'd just popped out of Vidal Sassoon - most odd for the period, and even if it was meant to indicate her Suffragette disdain for convention, a haircut like that would be a good 40, 50 years ahead of its time, surely!

I read somewhere that Tietjens was meant to be stolid and a bit podgy, so BC was wearing padding....can't say I noticed much although I was looking carefully

Short bobbed hair was already becoming fashionable from 1909 onwards - not every Edwardian woman had a pompadour.

Also Valentine isn't someone who makes a big deal of their hair - there is no suggestion in the book that it is short as a sign of her support for the Suffragette movement.

Also agree with highlandcoo there. He was prepared to marry her (unlike her lover), even though he suspected that he wasn't the father.

The pregnancy has forced her to trap a husband, which is why at the start, when her lover calls, she says something like "tell the gentleman it's too late" and then after hanging up she says "Too bloody late". This to me, implies a certain disappointment that he (her lover 'Potty') - hadn't acted earler.

Sylvia rages against the social mores and conventions that conservative Tietjens stands for. She hates the fact that she is forced to get a husband due to the pregnancy - and although she knows she is beholden to him - his conservatism, and stand for decency infuriates her too. He sort of represents everything that suffocates her. She also knows that by trapping him, she is trapping herself too. Hence why she tells her lover that she just 'wants to die'. I find Sylvia a fascinating character!

Anyway, it's taken me two viewings and a look at Wikipedia to work out some of the characters - but on second viewing it's brilliant. Also pleasantly surprised by the amount of humour. Looking forward to the next ep.

Oops just realised I must have missed an entire page lol. Apologies for joining the conversation way after it's moved on! (Typical!).

What is this called and why did I miss it?

Parades End.

It was on BBC2 on Friday night, first of a 5-parter. It should be on iplayer.