He Knew He Was Right

Brilliant adapatation of Trollope's long novel. The actress playing Dorothy is particularly luminous, although all the cast perform well (especially Palmer and James as parents of poor Emily). The social norms and rules may seem strange to a modern audience, but this sort of thing kept Victorian readers on the edge of the seats. The setting was moved from Exeter to Wells for the serial as Wells is more unspoilt (a beautiful Cathedral City in Somerset for those unfamiliar with the UK). Vicars' Close, unchanged since Victorian times, and the Cathedral Close are used particularly well by the production crew.

Trollope wrote some 49 novels, although few would adapt as well as this to the small screen. Hopefully the DVD release will follow soon.

Once again I find myself sitting in on a Sunday night and what happens, my mum puts on BBC 1 at 9 and i think: "not another period drama...". But actually, this one wasn't so bad...

Not because it had a decent plot or any particularly good character development but because Laura Fraser was in it. I couldn't place her at first but i soon realised it was none other than Kate the blacksmith from A Knights Tale. Not only is she considerably more beautiful than anyone else in the film (especially the french sisters...), but she can act a hell of a lot better than most of them as well. I appreciate that most actors find it difficult to act in the pretentious voices, but why do it then? Is there really a shortage of people who can speak pretentiously? Who knows, point being, Laura stood out around the rest of them.

That piece of sycophancy aside, I think the problem with this period drama, like so many others, is its willingness to include so much plot at the expense of character development. Perhaps if there was only one girl trying to marry each man instead of half a dozen, we might understand better why she wanted to marry him. Or maybe I'm missing the point. It just seems to me that the girls always one day decide they love someone they've never spent any significant amount of time with, and thats it.

Anyway, as I say, its better than most, so if you like this sort of thing, You'll love this one.

Chopped up Trollope is worse than no Trollope at all in my view. There is barely enough exposition for a complex set of characters but there are plenty of climaxes and assorted running gags which are hard to get unless you've read the book. It's basically is a series of punch-lines with no lead-ins.

This isn't even directed on decent soap opera level, which might have satisfied the time constraints. Why oh why must so many of the characters mug as they address the camera. With the exception of Anna Massey, the acting is dreadful, particularly the leading men, who look like they long to be in a rock opera or at least an early Disney Opus. A spoonful of medicine isn't enough for this travesty, I'm afraid.

As usual for Masterpiece Theater, the settings are lovely & the music is very loud.

He Knew What He Wanted starts out interestingly enough, with varying love stories surrounding interconnected characters. The stories range from melodrama to comedy. The main one is sort of a reverse Othello, as the effects of jealousy take their toll on the main character.

As the stories unfold over four episodes, however, they begin to fall apart. Some scenes are repeated again and again, simply in different settings, until one wonders if the actors even got confused. The interconnections of families is broken almost from the start, so the stories become ever more separate.

This is exacerbated by some very poor directorial and editorial choices. From a slow- moving, deeply "tortured" scene we jump to a brightly lit comedic farce. The jumps are jolting and remove the emotional punch. Some character arcs are never fully explained (one suspects they ended up on the cutting room floor), so some of the characters make choices that don't make much sense.

The casting was excellent and the lavish sets and costumes up to the usual BBC standards. It's unfortunate that a potentially compelling story ends up trivializing itself and ultimately looking silly.

Decent production values. Unlikely scenario: stubbornness to the nth degree. Nicely acted in most parts.

There is a concept of 'the fourth wall' which separates the drama from the viewer. This is smashed regularly for no apparent reason, when one of the characters, suddenly turns to the camera and delivers some form of rationalization. This will add nothing to the exposition, but leaving the viewer, newly disconnected from the world in which he/she was immersed, wondering what on earth the director intended to achieve. Depending on how engrossed you were this is either amusing or infuriating. Really one of the worst (best) examples of why this is not normally a good idea.