Doctor Thorne: a bit crap?

[MorrisZapp]

Anyone?

They had wonderful actors but I found the production stilted and unconvincing.

The leading couple did nothing for me.

Rebecca Front played the snobby matriarch she's played at least twice before. Some of her lines were almost identical to War and Peace, not to mention Death comes to Pemberley.

Somehow it added up to less than the sum of its parts.

I only managed the first episode. I didn't like the tone. Dr Thorne can, I suppose, stand alone as a novel or programme I'm sure, but I wonder at the choice and beginning in the middle of the series (though the very idea of the Warden and Barchester Towers being redone and bettered!)

Yes, in short, a bit crap.

I really enjoyed it. But after I realised it was only 3 episodes long, and that the plot was the totally bleeding obvious and not an interesting un-obvious turn of events I did think all in all it was pretty pointless. Sad really.

I thought it was awful.

It was very predictable and rather dull.

It came across as silly rather than funny imo.

Still, it would have needed twice as long as there is so much more to it!

Donald Pleasance as The Warden & Alan Rickman as Obidiah Slop(e).

Just wonderful!

Yes the love/inheritance story would have made a nice subplot. But it just didn't sustain three full episodes, the cast had to 'tread water' for so much of it.

And were we meant to laugh at the jilted sister whose weaselly cousin (?) talked her out of marrying the estate agent only to marry him herself? I thought that was horrible.

I just never felt that these people were actually related to each other. And that the 'doctor' seemed to be employed mainly as a counsellor to posh people.

I only managed episode 1.

French and Saunders would have done it so much better.

at Liney - French & Saunders. It was close at times.

I found the flowers & vegetation on their heads more diverting than the storyline.

Shame as I do like an occasional bonnet story.

Not helped by the fact the sainted Tom Tom Hollander was a total arse in an interview I read about it.

I get that it must be boring doing the promotional stuff but answering intelligent questions from the nice lady from the Radio Times is hardly bum selfies is it.

The young actress who played Mary was much more forthcoming. According to the I paper yesterday, Hollander is worth millions. I'm going off him.

Funny you should say that Morris. I've been watching him in The Night Manager and thought his rather stilted manner was, you know, just acting the character. But then I saw him on a chat show and he was the same - looking at the floor when talking. Weird flow of chat, like a rusty cog. I thought perhaps he was just a secret introverted lovey-actor type. But then he's been just the same in Doctor Thorne. It's not acting if you're just being yourself.

Cute though. In a mischievous dog kind of way. A bit like Brian from Family Guy.