Great Expectations BBC One 9pm Sunday

[CrossPurposes]

Yet another version begins tonight: https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/articles/2023/great-expectations-steven-knight

Also I thought its one saving grace was the actor who played young Pip, who looked about 17? Then the second the character turned 18 they replaced him with an actor who (looked nothing like him and) was about 30!

Anyone still watching? A somewhat dark start to the episode!

No I gave up part-way through last week's episode. Dire.

Becoming increasingly overcomplicated.

Not sure if I am watching it in the hope it gets better, or if it's a straightforward hate watch.

I suspect the latter.

I'm still enjoying as is my teen dd 🤷‍♀️ I do accept they have strayed a long way from the book though!!

And a rather long winded, time filler

I'm watching it with my teen DS and we are both loving it.

I'm really struggling with it but determined to finish as its one of my favourite Dickens books. But it's straying so far from the source material it may as well be another story.

We're struggling to reconcile the two as well. Jaggers is being made much more of a player in his own right than I recall. Suddenly Pip is so much less naive. How on earth has it got stretched to six episodes.

I've been enjoying it but swapped over to the Agatha Christie on ITV tonight and enjoyed that far more

Can it get any darker?

I abandoned it tonight.

I really wanted to like it but found the third episode very disappointing. I re read the book.this week and enjoyed it very much but it means the original plot is very fresh in my mind. It feels as if this version takes the names and broadest outline and shakes it up into something that resembles the original but loses the point. Showing Pip being forced to leave his loved ones is very different to him abandoning them without a backwards glance. There's no sense of him betraying his origins for his ambition. His aggression to Jaggers in the inn was very out of character and the casting of Jaggers as evil rather than powerful again distorts the meaning of the book.
I'll stick with it now I'm halfway through but can't see where it's heading really.

I was a bit confused by the Australia bit, did we go back in time?

No think that was to remind of the ongoing resentment between Magwitch and Compeson - deviating from the book as they are largely forgotten after the opening section.

What happens in Australia - where Magwitch and Compeyson have both been deported - is important to later plot developments but is not shown in the book, just briefly referred to at the end.

I agree. The hostility between Pip and Jaggers doesn’t exist in the book. Pip is intimidated by charismatic and aloof Jaggers but there is no aggression passing between them. The book doesn’t mention Magwitch until much further on in the book, for good reason.

But it is tokenism. And it shows. Estella should be a white young lady with cut glass vowels and superior manners..These things are important to the themes of the book. This.Estella wouldn't inspire anyone to be a gentleman - She's all wrong for the part.

I just don't think Estelle is right in any of her transitions. Ruins it for me.

She's wrong for the part as written in the book. As are Pip, Mrs Joe, and Jaggers. But it has nothing to do with the colour of anyone's skin and everything to do with Knight's re-imagining of the book. There could be a black, cut glass accented supercilious actor and that would be faithful to the book. Calling it tokenism is saying you can't get beyond her skin colour and it's really unfair on black actors. Like black oxbridge students being told they are only there because of positive discrimination. It reduces them to their skin colour and ignores their talents. It's not OK.

I can't remember much of Dickens' original story but I am enjoying Pip and Jaggers' adventures in London and their relationship. It has a Taboo-ish quality which I like. I wondered how Pip could competently sail a ship, though.

I wondered what it reminded me of!

An episode which completely failed to progress the plot! When did Estella previously meet Joe or Biddy, they all seemed pretty familiar. Iirc In the book she never does and in fact we never see events from her pov, if at all.

It's so frustratingly untrue to the book! But quite watchable if you can manage to put that to one side.

In the series, Pip and Estella are both shown as pawns being forced to act against their will. The original story is so much more subtle. In the book, Pip is quite happy to leave the forge with barely a backwards glance as he is so sure he is destined for greater things. Estella has been deliberately ruined emotionally by Miss Havisham to the point where she quite willingly marries Drummle because she knows it will break her other suitors' hearts. She also intends to hurt Drummle, though in the end he is the one who physically abuses her and they are both unhappy in the marriage.

So the brutal and calculating partnership and manipulation of Jaggers and Miss Havisham in this series (which is a bit reminiscent of Dangerous Liaisons) is not quite right, and neither are Pip or Estella.

Pip in this version just seems thoroughly unlikeable and sulky, and I'm finding it hard to care much what happens to him.

I'm liking the acting and portrayals of Jagger, Estella and Havisham even though they aren't the characters from the book. I'll stick with it now I've got this far but suspect I'll be moaning about it to the end of the final episode!

I’ve just decided to try to forget that I know the book, and enjoy it for what it is. I’m enjoying it a lot, though finding it hard to like any of the characters at all!