Grandes esperanzas

Several of my favorite actors are in this adaptation, and I really wanted to love it. With every episode, I hated this version more and more. The entire thing strayed so far from the book and other adaptations. I get the creative license and interpreting it in a unique way, but my great expectations for this adaptation did not come to fruition. I think my disappointment was in the Pip storyline most of all. There were a few things I did like about this interpretation but it was from other characters mostly. I know Great Expectations is generally depressing, but this version was so extremely depressing and full of heartache and negative scenes (even gross scenes), that it really turned me off. I will not be watching this version again (I have previous versions on DVD).

I knew this was going to be a crass modern pandering to a public sector committee adaptation.

It is poor and to be honest it's the way British drama has been for the past 20 years. They just haven't got any originality or thought in how they will achieve a good drama.

This new, sigh, reworking has all the hallmarks of la-dee-da acting and production. Nothing works. The backstory of the each character is pitiful.

Nothing works like the original. We don't want 2023 values thrust upon an adaptation that's set in the early 19th century. Lord of the rings, or power rings or whatever it's called did the same and it ended up as a pile of rot.

Avoid this drama.

It got worse and worse. It started out ok. There were a few instances of context that are not in Dickens, references to opium and the slave trade, and there was some clunky dialogue where women explained they were not ok with second class citizenship. That was ok. I felt it was unnecessary personally but I can see the temptation to make obvious to a modern audience what is implied or inferred.

By episode three it went off into scenes that are not in the book in any way and dialogue that has nothing to do with the novel. It is also slow paced. So much plodding music and a brooding boy. Makes you wonder why it was made.

Dickens was a wonderfully descriptive writer- but there's no richness of story in the first episode.

It is like watching a plodding unimaginative story recounted in a flat voice by someone who can't be bothered.

It isn't the cast's fault- indeed the casting is probably the best part of this version.

I found the relationship between Pip and Joe curiously cold.

I simply found I couldn't care about what happened next.

Perhaps some previous versions have just been too good.

My all time favourite was years ago-with a wonderful Stratford Johns playing Magwitch. I was hoping for something like that this time.

I don't think I'll watch the rest.

It has made me want to re-read the book again.

I would hate anyone who hasn't read the story to watch this and think that this is what Dickens wrote. Charles Dickens would not recognise this dark relentless chunk of misery as his warm, witty and engaging coming-of-age story Great Expectations. The only redeeming feature is the acting of Olivia Colman, superb as always, although why make her such a nasty opium addict? The script bears hardly any reference to the book, and the language used is disgraceful. Where are the many light hearted moments, the amusing conversations, the wry observations? I have endured three episodes and have no engagement or sympathy with any of the characters. I do not intend to subject myself to any more of this dross.