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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (BBC Mini-Series)

Oh I am slain!

Oh I am slain!

Wynaut?
Location
Tatooine
Anyone watched this yet? It's a 7-part BBC series adapted from the Hugo Award-winning book by Susanna Clarke, which I quite enjoyed. Think of it as a cross between Jane Austen and Neil Gaiman. Gaiman himself helped her get started in publishing her book, and has written about how he first encountered her work. He calls it "the finest work of English fantasy written in the past 70 years. "

Three episodes have already aired in Britain, and the first airs on BBC America today. The first episode can also be found on Youtube. 82% rating thus far on Rotten Tomatoes, 62% on Metacritic.

Synopsis of TV Series said:
Set in England during the Napoleonic wars at the beginning of the 19th century, the series presents an alternate history where magic is widely acknowledged, but rarely practiced. Living in the rural north, Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey is able to make the statues of York Minster talk and move. His manservant John Childermass persuades him to travel to London to help in the war against France. While there, Mr Norrell encounters a leading member of the government and makes magic respectable in the realm when he conjures a fairy to bring the minister's fiancée back to life. Meanwhile, Jonathan Strange meets Vinculus, a street magician, while attempting to find a respectable profession, as demanded by his love Arabella. Strange is told by Vinculus that he is destined to be a great magician and so he begins to study magic.
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Trailer:

(Note: Half of the series is slower-paced and more subtly creepy than this trailers implies. The other half is approximately the same level of hectic silliness.)
 
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Knowing that this was coming out finally got me to read the book.

So far, I'm liking it, though the "Gentleman" With the Thistle-Down Hair comes off more dignified than I pictured him in my head.
 
krinsbez said:
Knowing that this was coming out finally got me to read the book.
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Yeah, it was a fairly long and dense read. I'm a sucker for fictional footnotes though. :)

krinsbez said:
So far, I'm liking it, though the "Gentleman" With the Thistle-Down Hair comes off more dignified than I pictured him in my head.
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John Childermass was the one who threw me off a little, but I dunno what I was expecting. Regardless, the acting was great.
 
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Oh I am slain! said:
Yeah, it was a fairly long and dense read. I'm a sucker for fictional footnotes though. :)
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Aye, same here.

John Childermass was the one who threw me off a little, but I dunno what I was expecting. Regardless, the acting was great.
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I dunno, he's pretty much how I pictured him.

Side note, I also expected Drawlight to be a bit less obviously a social con artist, y'know what I mean?
 
Just watched the finale

That was the best peice of TV the BBC has made since Sherlock's second season. Perhaps even better.

I was certainly the best piece of Fantasy TV/Movie that I've ever seen.

Wow. Just wow.
 
So, we've only had the first three episodes here in the States, and I'm loving it, but their conception of the "Gentleman" With Thistle-Down Hair confuses me. In the book, he's presented as being a giggling man-child who genuinely does not seem to comprehend that he's making Stephen and Lady Pole miserable. Here he's presented as a stern, unsmiling figure who chooses to disregard Stephen's objections.
 
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Meant to read the book when it came out, didn't, am now strongly considering.

I loved the bit at the Chateau Huguenot.
 
Started watching it and whilst it look good decided there was someting I was missing.

So got the book on my reading list and will watch the show once I get around finish it, I'm still not sure how I managed to completely miss a book on a magical napoleonic war in the firt place.
 
Gizmo said:
Started watching it and whilst it look good decided there was someting I was missing.

So got the book on my reading list and will watch the show once I get around finish it, I'm still not sure how I managed to completely miss a book on a magical napoleonic war in the firt place.
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I initially missed it because it was really, really big and when I first saw it appear on the library shelf I had too full a slate to take it out, and was insufficiently sure about it to clear said slate by returning books unread. As it was also really, really popular, every time I had managed to reduce my extant reading list to a point I was comfortable taking out such a mammoth, it was out, and then it went down to the stacks and I forgot about it until the miniseries was announced.

I actually finished it the day the miniseries premiered in the States.

Anyways, as I've said before, I'm liking it a lot. I do have three problems with it:

-One, maybe it's just me, but Norell comes off as more overtly villainous than in the book, if only because we don't get more of the two magicians actually being friends.
-Two, as I've expressed before, the "Gentlemen" With Thistle-Down Hair comes off as less whimsical and less oblivious to the harm he's doing.
-Three, they haven't really established the significance of John Uskglass*.

*Side note, maybe it's just me, but was anyone else kinda confused when the book went from exclusively referring to him as he Raven King to also using his "Christian" name about halfway through?
 
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The miniseries was just added to Netflix in the US, I believe. Just started watching this again on a nice high-res screen. Definitely a delight. That is all. :)
 
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