All We Are Saying Is: Give 'War and Peace' a Chance

Здравствуйте! It is I, Arsenic Pie, your favorite Slavophile and BBC nerd, here to apprise you of the BBC production of War and Peace that everyone is ranting about. 

Война и мир

Need something to watch while you work on your Russian tricolor blanket knitting project? Have no fear. The BBC's adaptation of War and Peace has all the people sobbing in corsets and bodice ripping you need. Given the current posturing by various presidential candidates who shall remain nameless, BBC's adaptation comes just in time to remind us all that pissing off Russia is a really fucking bad idea. 

This is Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon invaded Russia. Napoleon got his ass kicked. Don't be like Napoleon.

I've seen every BBC costume drama on the planet, so trust me when I say that their War and Peace is a competent production, albeit very, very typical output from the BBC. However, the incest in this is new. Usually the BBC = not much incest. Not a whole lotta brother/sister groping going on in Jane Austen, know what I'm sayin'?

No, it doesn't reach the storied glories of Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk's 1967 adaptation. However, if you want to watch people sporting posh British accents pretending they are speaking Russian, it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Part 1 is very slow. This is where the script could have used a little bit more ooph. Paul Dano's performance as Pierre Bezukhov, however, carries the weight of the production, and keeps up the interest into Part 2. Part 2 picks up a bit more steam, with Part 3 really getting into the meat of the story. We all know Bezukov is Tolstoy's Mary Sue, so perhaps it isn't surprising that he comes through as the most interesting character in the series. As for Dano, give the man a Golden Globe already. As far as BBC adaptations go, I personally preferred their recent adaptation of Poldark, but I am planning to watch War and Peace like it's my job. And I will knit. I WILL KNIT FOR MOTHER RUSSIA. 

BBC Wales certainly brought out their heavy hitters. British go-to novel adaptation screenwriter Andrew Davies has created a pretty faithful script.  The production values are no less what one would expect from one of BBC’s famous big-budget costume dramas. The cast list reads like a Who’s Who of respected or trendy British (and a few American) actors: Paul Dano of Little Miss Sunshine stars at the bespectacled and well-meaning Pierre Bezukhov; Lily James of Downton Abbey is Natasha Rostova; James Norton (Grantchester) is Andrei Bolkonsky; Jim Broadbent (Iris, Vanity Fair) is Prince Nikokai Bolkonsky; Aisling Loftus (Mr. Selfridge) is Sonya Rostova; Gillian Anderson (FUCKING DANA SCULLY) is Anna Pavlovna Scherer; and Greta Scacci (Emma, Daniel Deronda) is Countess Natalia Rostova. 

Aside from the enormous budget and glittering cast, the movie itself is a respectful treatment of Tolstoy’s epic. Russian culture -- from traditional chant overlaid on the battle scenes to Orthodox weddings and baptism -- is treated as a natural part of the film’s backdrop and storyline, so not a whole lot of Otherizing going on. Although, somebody on the production team told the "Austrians" to sport poorly executed accents. That was a bad call. They sound like Nazis.

War & Peace was shot on location in Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia in such locations as Catherine Palace, The State Hermitage Museum, The Russian Museum, the Yusopov Palace, and was funded in part by the Lithuanian Tax Incentive for Film Production, and features the musical talents of the State Choir of Latvia.

If you are looking for something in a similar vein, I recommend heading over to YouTube and checking out Rossiya 1’s Ekaterina (with English subtitles), a 12-part miniseries which depicts Catherine II’s early years in Russia. It definitely gives Beeb productions a run for its money, and as Rossiya 1 = BBC, the diction and intonation of the actors is quite clear and easy for Russian language learners to understand.

War & Peace is airing stateside on the History Channel, A&E, and Lifetime (really). It’s also available via streaming on Amazon video.

The British Be Invadin

As Clovis and Maggie Cats have decamped for parts unknown, I felt it behooved yours truly to update all of you lovely people about the programs I have been spending my time watching instead of keeping up with Mad Men. (It's on my DVR, chickens! Fear not.) I thought perhaps you lovelies all thought I had shut myself in my apartment, huddled in blankets, binge watching Call the Midwife while eating cookies and cream gelato directly out of the pint. Me? Do such a thing? So, I thought I would keep you abreast of what I had been up to TV-wise.

I've been watching the hell out of Call the Midwife.

My dudes, this show gets me right in the feels. Now having completed its third, yes, third season, the BBC One drama has seen some major changes occur in the lives of the young midwives and the nuns of Nonnatus House. The most significant event of Season 3 is that Jessica Raine, who portrays the late Jennifer (Lee) Worth (on whose memoirs the show is based) has said goodbye to the series in the hopes of finding greener pastures elsewhere in some absurd little backwater known as Hollywood. After three seasons of filming graphic births, Raine is ready to move on to new challenges and new roles. Jenny starts a new job at a Marie Curie cancer hospital, working with terminally ill patients, and she begins her life with Philip Worth.  However, her departure does not mean the end of the series. BBC has renewed Call the Midwife for Season 4, starting in 2015. Like all good ensemble shows, Call the Midwife has done a fine job of developing its supporting characters, so there is plenty of interest in Chummy, Trixie, Cynthia, kind Sister Julienne, BAMF Sister Evangelina and batty Sister Monica Joan. 

RIGHT IN THE FEELZ!

If you watched all of Season 2 and the Christmas special, you will know that Sister Bernadette has thrown off her habit like she is Maria Fucking Von Trapp, and gotten herself married to Dr. Turner. She dyed her hair and went back to being called Shelagh and she is all kinds of prosh. Dr. Turner and Shelagh were being all kinds of improperly flirty in Season 1 and it's nice to see that relationship come to a successful conclusion. However, Shelagh discovers that her bout with tuberculosis during Season 2 has left scar tissue on her lady bits and she is told that it is unlikely that she will be able to conceive a child.

The show also shifted focus this season somewhat away from Jenny's personal life and more on the personal lives of Trixie and Chummy. Chummy has a bittersweet reconciliation with her posh mum, and she tries to become a Modern Lady, attempting to balance marriage and family with a career. And Trixie starts dating A VICAR. 

Go on with your bad self, Trixie.

I'm sure there will be more development of Cynthia, and the producers have introduced two new characters: Sister Winifred, direct from the Mother House, and new midwife Patsy. 

Call the Midwife is a huge hit in the UK and I encourage all of you duckies to tune in. The guys on this show are so hot. Even Dr. Turner is sexy for an old dude. Seasons 1 and 2 are available via Netflix streaming and through Netflix DVD. Generally, it airs Sunday nights at 8 EST on PBS. 

Next in PBS news (I'm not frontin or nothin; I watch a lot of PBS) is Mr. Selfridge.

 I'm actually glad I gave this show another shot. It's done the opposite of what Downton Abbey has done -- Mr. Selfridge started out weak and it's getting stronger. The shows are pretty comparable, and I do think Mr. Selfridge is a much better show at this point. Season 1 began in 1909, and Season 2 has moved forward in pastfuturetime to 1914, and addresses the outbreak of World War I. Harry (Jeremy Piven) and Rose (Frances O'Connor) Selfridge have stopped cheating on each other with really scary stalker people and are trying to rebuild their marriage. Since the show moved five years into the future, the role of Gordon Selfridge has been recast with an older actor (now portrayed by Greg Austin) and Harry sets the lad to work in the store, starting in the stock room and moving up to the perfume counter, where he begins a flirt with a young shopgirl. D'aww. 

With the outbreak of war, Harry attempts to break into the British establishment by using his money and connections to secure a seat on the Procurement Committee. He runs into a roadblock in the form of Lord Loxley, who dislikes Harry on a personal level. The Procurement Committee is dismissive of Harry's attempts to break into the British aristocracy because he is of low birth and American and all that jazz.

Focusing more on the ensemble cast and their personal struggles has allowed the characters to become more fully fleshed out, and in many cases, more likeable. Case in point is Mae Loxley (Katherine Kelly), who during Season 1 was a very cougary vampy person, but this season has revealed that the formerly MIA Lord Loxley is a TOTAL fucking asshole and I kept wishing for Mae to push him down the stairs.

Just you wait, my dears. 

There has also been a bit more focus on Store Ginger, Kitty Hawkins (Amy Beth Hayes), late of ladies' accessories. Kitty is now Miss Mardle's assistant, and she gets to boss the junior accessories assistants. Her character has revealed itself to be less catty and much more amiable, likely due to her character maturing, and through her burgeoning relationship with newspaper man Frank Edwards (British mainstay Samuel West). All workplace dramas need a ginger. Fact.

And then I told him I never wanted to speak to him again. I think I'm in love!

The title may be Mr. Selfridge, but the star of the show is, and always has been, Agnes Towler (Aisling Loftus). Agnes returns from her design studies in Paris and takes over as head of design.  There, she must contend with the jealousy of wannabe rival in ladies' fashion, the bitchy Mr. Thackeray. Agnes is also conflicted due to the return from America of her former lovvvvaaahhh, Henri LeClair (Grégory Fitoussi) because, in his absence, she has grown closer to Victor Corleone. Agnes realizes she must choose between one of her suitors, and compounding her work and personal stress is the fact that her brother, George, is one of the very first to sign up for active military duty. Oh, the dramz.

Oui!

The adorable Miss Mardle (Amanda Abbington) receives two life bonuses this season, while Mr. Grove continues to be a clueless douche. If you haven't noticed, and you should, Amanda Abbington also appears on Sherlock as Mary Morstan, and she is totes Martin Freeman's lady friend in real life. She is just wonderful on Mr. Selfridge, and if you haven't tuned in, you should.

We'll mad your men. And sell it a sturdy pair of boots.

Seriously, this show has gotten under my skin. The first few episodes of the first season are melodramatic and silly, but this season has made up for it in spades. If you're looking for a British costume drama that has the bells and whistles of Downton Abbey, but with better writing and a perfume counter, I very much encourage you to get on board with Mr. Selfridge. The show's home network, ITV, has renewed it for a third season. Mr. Selfridge normally airs around 9 p.m. EST Sundays on PBS. Some episodes are available for streaming on PBS.org.

The next ensemble of which I speak is BBC America's Brit-Can-Am Orphan Black, which is an entirely different kind of ensemble show altogether.

My dudes, this show is crack. I can't say too much about the season thus far without revealing major spoilers. 

Cosima (Tatiana Maslany) is working for the Dyad Institute, but the symptoms of her mysterious illness begin to worsen. Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) searches for answers about Mrs. S's involvement in Project LEDA. We learn more about pro-clone Rachel (Tatiana Maslany), and Helena (Tatiana Maslany) survived being shot by Sarah, but was abducted by some creepy International House of Prayer culty science people. Alison (Tatiana Maslany) turns into a pill popper due to her guilt over Ainsley's death, and the fact that she's finally realized that her husband, bumbling, oafish Donny, is in fact her monitor.

Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany (Tatiana Maslany) deserves some kind of acting Olympic gold medal. Much has been said about her performance  and it all bears repeating. Her portrayal of each of the clones is so mesmerizing and utterly believable that you really do forget that Cosima, Rachel, Sarah, Alison, and Helena are all played by the same actress, and the illusion goes far beyond wardrobe, make-up, and hair. 

Orphan Black airs Saturday nights on BBC America at 9 p.m. EST. Netflix for some odd reason does not have this available for streaming, but they do have Season 1 on DVD.

Your Crinoline Is Showing, My Dear

So, I have a confession to make. 

I've only read one Emile Zola book in my entire life. It was horrifically depressing and ended with the heroine of the novel being found dead several days after she'd died from OD-ing on absinthe. Absinthe. That's what's missing from television these days.  Hey, at least she didn't throw herself under a train, amirite? God, Victorian ladies. Just get the right to vote already. 

I don't have any rights in 19th century Europe, but a girl can give side eye. 

But fear not! Those brave folks over at BBC One -- knowing how much we Yanks like to watch British people in fancy dress plot against and snark at each other -- have released an adaptation of Zola's Au Bonheur des Dames, translated into English as The Paradise, airing on a teevee or interwebz near you. 

So, I spent this past weekend watching the episodes that aired on Masterpiece Classic. Visually, it is definitely a treat. The lighting and coloring of the shoot are all very soft, and the 1870s-1880s costumes are killer. It's kind of like watching an Impressionist painting come to live. Except maybe with fewer tongue-in-cheek hooker jokes.  

Le Américain Jerry Lewis est un génie. 

The Paradise more or less what one comes to expect from a UK costume drama: frippery; unrequited love; unadvised attractions to one's social inferiors; pearl-clutching; children of questionable parentage; fainting; and the liberal employment of smelling salts.  If you simply cannot wait for the return of Downton Abbey in January, you simply must imbibe.

I was kind of surprised that this was based on a Zola novel, because Mr. J'accuse is kind of a downer.  So, I checked the Wikipedia to see how loosely based this was on Zola's novel, and I discovered that it was originally a novel series, set in Paris. Sticklers might dislike that the novel has been relocated to York, but as long as it doesn't all end with the heroine being found several days after rigor mortis has set in, I'm kind of okay with the Anglo reboot. 

The show is similar in concept to ITV's Mr. Selfridge, which aired on PBS earlier this year. I tried really hard to get into Mr. Selfridge earlier this year and it just wasn't doing it for me, sick costumes notwithstanding. The Paradise is all beribboned and bebustled, but the things that it has going for it that I feel Mr. Selfridge doesn't are: good acting; good writing; sympathetic characters; a likable and interesting supporting ensemble cast; and a likable leading man who succeeds at coming across as rakish and charming instead of pervy. And where else, I ask you, can you hear such words as"'haberdashery"?  Get on this posthaste.

Fraulein, were you this much trouble at the abbey?

The show follows the exploits of Miss Denise Lovett (Johanna Vanderham), who arrives in York to work in her uncle's shop. She will serve as our Ingenue/Princess-in-Disguise. Unfortunately, her uncle's Edmund's business is suffering because the Victorian equivalent of Wal-Mart has opened up across the street. 

Since slavery ended in the States, we've discovered this delightful little thing called exploitative textile mills. They employ children! It's quite, quite charming!

Edmund tells Denise that there's no work for her at his shop, so she applies for a position at the The Paradise, the large department store across the street. The Paradise is owned and operated by Mr. John Moray, our aforementioned Rakish Leading Man. Denise is hired to work in ladies' wear, but quickly gains the attention of fashionable clients like Katherine Glendenning, who purchases an expensive frock at Denise's insistence. This causes strife between Denise and Miss Audrey, the head of ladies' wear, and Clara, a fellow shopgirl who feels slighted continually after Denise's arrival. 

Denise also attracts the attentions of Moray, who begins to rely on Denise's suggestions for improvement at the store. He also begins to make made calf eyes at her pretty soon after their introduction. This complicates matters because Moray's ostensible girlfriend (and potential future fiance), Katherine Glendenning, is a regular patron at the store. Her father, Lord Glendenning, is a financial backer of Moray's adventure. Moray insists that he's in mourning for his dead wife, and that's why he hasn't proposed, but really it's that he's Just Not That Into Katherine. He's also hot for Denise. There's also that. 

Hell hath no shopping sprees like a woman scorned.

Moray, it seems, was also bedding Clara, and then broke things off because .. well ... because, why not? I guess it's Denise's job to reform him, save him from himself, etc. Get excited, girls. 

It has always been a girlish dream of mine to love a man called Ernest.

If I can have a personal geek-out moment. I can? All right then. One thing that got me super excited about The Paradise was the presence of a few cast members from the BBC's now-defunct Lark Rise to Candleford, which I feel the Beeb took off the air way too soon (and likely lost that viewership to ITV and Downton Abbey). The stinkin' adorable Ruby Bentall (Minnie on Lark Rise), once again cast as a working class Victorian girl (TYPECASTING) appears as Pauline, one of Denise's allies in ladies' wear. 

Hey, I'm going to ride this goofy and quirky train as long as the paychecks keep rolling in.

Fellow LR alum Matthew McNulty (Hottie McHotHot Fisher Boom on LR) appears as Dudley, Moray's business partner. Also putting in an appearance in Episode 1 is Olivia Hallinan, who portrays Katherine's histrionic and somewhat vampy friend -- a departure from her wide-eyed, innocent turn as Laura Timmins.

It's true, Katherine. I came in...like...a wrecking ball. I'm so sorry.

You can watch The Paradise online at PBS.org.  It is airing on Masterpiece Classic here and there, so check your local listings for dates and times.  Rumor has it that the BBC has commissioned a second series.  You may now flail about and squee. Let's hope they keep this one on the air, shall we?

Broadchurch will break you

So, I kind of don't know where to begin with this. Broadchurch, y'all. Easily the best eight hours of television I've seen in a while.

For those of you not on top of your BBC America summer re-airing game, Broadchurch is a self-contained series about the murder of a young boy in the small seaside town of Broadchurch, England. I was initially a little hesitant because, although it stars David Tennant's native Scottish accent* as a world-weary police investigator, it also features the death of an 11-year-old kid. As the stepmom of an 11-year-old kid, I was ... wary.

But dear Lord am I glad I tuned in. (WARNING: ALL OF THE SPOILERS AHEAD!)