This week's Tess

[cornsilk]

Where's her baby?

Same actor for both

why what happens to him in the tudors?

Prob won't happen to him for eight series - Mary I did away with him. I think he was quite old by then.

will have to start watching the tudors
i havent read the book and from the Tv series my impressions are that Tess and Angel are a bit pathetic really, even when Angel said that to Mercy he immediately said sorry, it was far crueler (sp?) what he said to the other milkmaid about coming away with him.
Angel isn't fanciable at all and not at all good looking whereas Alec on the other hand... and at least he has a bit of backbone.
Also, it is annoying me that they show her walking miles but really it seems to only have taken place within 3 villages which happen to have all the same people working at them.
The bloke who is the overseer in the turnip place is a very good character although i did think that he was going to try and rape Tess or do something really nasty to her.
going back to the original rape question, in the last episode she says to Angel that he didn't take her by force but that she didn't know what was happening.

I have read it and found it quite true to the text as I remember it. Angel is a bastard, albeit a passive aggressive one.

I was ok till the last ten minutes and then the tears came. Well done the bbc! A top class production.

My hubby had to comfort me a bit at the end, and then he looked at me and said "Did you enjoy that?" Made me laugh and cheered me up right away! Thanks love!!! : ) xxx

I think I cried on and off every episode!
I thought Angel Clare had all the qualities I imagined from the book, infact I thought he was cast quite well.

Angel has a spotty arse. That's my observation for this week.

Angel and Tess looked like each other, all freckles and pouts.

Not enough Alec for my liking this episode.

God I've been in BITS at the end of that episode tonight! I even did one of those rasping sobs when you're trying to keep it in as I didn't want dh taking the piss out of me. In fact he looked round saw my blubbery face and said "Awwww darling..."

I thought Angel was perfectly cast: flawed and naive and compellingly attractive but not in a conventional way.

I feel wrung out

I thought she was much better, a more fully rounded character than Kinsky's portrayal, which was far more focused on the passive 'jail bait' element - unsuprisinly given Polanski's past and relationship with her. But in this version she was a victim of her beauty in many respects, it was he undoing. The idea that if they had only danced at the lady day fair, that she would have fallen into good hands - that idea of terrible chance playing a part - had a real resonance with me. I think it was also a very brave and proto feminist prespective. Okay there was no happy ending, but Tess's story could have been typical of many women noticed by the wrong man, in a time where rape wasn't a crime, just a dishonour.

And Angel grappling with his own feelinge versus the morals of the day - it's wron to judge from out perspective today, but he was weak, a bastard, in spite of it being passive.

But Tess's character was never compromised. She was a woman tested to her limits, not more. Heatbreaking.

Don't any of you who thought this was bad read the Mayor of Casterbridge - that's all I'll say!

It was very sad wasn't it? Angel much more human in this episode and Alec really came across as a bastard.

I must say I had reservations about the guy playing Angel at first but I thought he did a wonderful job last night. All of that last section, with it being just Tess and Angel really broke my heart to be honest. And Stonehenge looked so beautiful!

Dear Moomin - I finally lost it at the part where she is going to be hanged and it showed the May day dance again and her first meeting with Angel. And then it was just the two of them dancing! Thats when I let out one of those rasping sobs!!

angel looked a right wimp in the bedroom scenes,covered in bum fluff.

Moomin and wintera - I did same, big gulpy sob and DH just laughed at me.

Bloody Thomas Hardy - let's hope the next Sun eve classic novel adaption is a jolly one.

I bloody missed it last night as DH decided he couldn't bear to watch it any more Will have to catch it on i-player or whatever.

I liked Tess and Angel.

Why, when I know the story backwards, do I still keep hoping that there's going to be a happy ending?

It's repeated next Sat I think ML.

The whole production has been stunning I think. I love T.Hardy.

I haven't cried at anything on the television for a long time but had a right old sob when that flag was raised. Brilliant.

just seen this as was away -think whole production was great - gemma a was fantastic and even angel good...

Awww its good to know I wasn't the only one crying into my hands last night! So nice to think that all across our glorious land, women everywhere were letting out those rasping sobs! And maybe even a few men?!

Oh, I sobbed too.
Dh came in and said "What you crying for? You've read it about 20m times, you know what happens!".
Compassionate!

Hardy is just one of those authors that has me totally consumed in the characters. I loves Far From the Madding Crowd and I want to slap Bathsheba so much for that 'trick' she plays on Farmer Boldwood - so so tragic.

I thought this adaptation really 'got' what Hardy was trying to say in much of his writing - about the inequality, unfairness and hypocrisy at the times and the treatment of women. I don't blame Angel totally - you could clearly see what his family were like, and they were not protrayed as fully 'evil' but just as a typical god-fearing middle-class family at the time. It just wasn't done to disown your family or social class.

Been thinking about it all day!