Indian Summers

[Arsenic]

What do we think?

JW overacting as normal....

Shades of Jewel in the Crown, I thought.

i think I enjoyed it enough to watch again

I heard an unenthusiastic review on Front Row on R4. Is it worth watching?

So boring.

I quite liked it. It's one of those ensemble things with a cast so large you need at least two episodes to find your feet.

I liked it too. The darkness of all the scheming and criminal Empire crumbling will be interesting. £14m budget shows. Stunning to watch.

actually filmed in Penang, Malaysia apparently

where it is meant to be as too many modern obstacles due to tourism apparently

I thought it was a bit rambling and confusing. But I'll watch it next week as the first episode of a series is often a bit jerky because they have to introduce all the characters and set several story lines in motion.

I was a bit disappointed, but perhaps because I've been really looking forward to this and had high expectations. It seemed a bit pedestrian but am giving it the benefit of the doubt and am hoping it picks up next week... (although with over 90 mins to set the scene I would have hoped it would have been a bit more compelling!)

I agree it was taking its time but can see there are a lot of characters and storylines that have to weave together so it was very much a scene setting episode. I have to say, though, that the cinematography, if that is the correct term on TV, was absolutely beautiful with amazingly vivid colours which made a real change from a lot of dark and dingy filming that we often see. I imagine its supposed to reflect the colour and vibrancy of India as well as the charmed life that the colonials are living. I will watch it again next week and see if it grows on me. Interesting to hear other views.

I watched it as my DM was in boarding school in Simla/Shimla in the 1930s - so was disappointed to find it wasn't even filmed there (and the train up to the town was far larger than the real one (which ran/runs on a 2'6" gauge).

The first half hour was better than I expected from the trailer but then I got bored and turned it off before the end. It looks ravishing but frankly not a patch on The Jewel in the Crown, which was sublime. Think I'll just watch that again on dvd instead.

BTW am I the only one who finds Julie Walters' accent excruciating? My mother was from Birmingham and I have several cousins there and none of them sound like JW!

She comes from Smethwick, and I dare say people from there would lynch you if you say it's Birmingham.

I read somewhere (Independent, I think) that JW's character is supposed to be from the East End of London

I wonder will she have a bigger role in future episodes. Channel 4 really used her to publicise the series and grab attention, which wasn't really warranted by the amount of screen time she got last night.

I didn't mean to watch it but was at my parents and on. I actually quite enjoyed it and that it captured the era well.

JW was irritating but hopefully she's just playing the character that way rather than she's a one trick over acting pony nowadays.

I really want to watch this but don't think I can dedicate 90 mins to it! What were they thinking?

I think the other 9 episodes are an hour each (?) SheHas

I liked it being so long. Was that just for the first one though?

Ah, ok. I thought that was probably the case.

It was good Sunday night 'nothing else on' viewing, but I wasn't blown away.

Some really crap dialogue and the 'teaser' at the end for next week's episode was about 5 mins long and showed us practically everything that is going to happen, which was a bit odd.

I'll probably watch it again next week, though

I'm watching just for the beautiful scenery and colours. Plot so far a bit meh!!

It does look gorgeous.

I had a look at the cast list and didn't realise it tells you how many episodes the characters are in...so it's a bit of a spoiler. One of the main characters has only one more episode!