Day 08 - A show everyone should watch.
Jul. 6th, 2014 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerDay 08 - A show everyone should watch.
I yearn, yearn to convince more people to watch the mini-series Desperate Romantics, about which I wrote three whole posts - one post for every two episodes! - while I was watching, because I loved it so much and it was so good and there was so much to say about it.
The miniseries is not about the Romantic poets, as the title might lead you to believe, but about the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - specifically John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rosetti (with an able assist later in the series from Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris) and their respective ladyloves. It does play rather fast and loose with history - telescoping, for instance, decades of Millais’ career into the few years covered by the show. But it’s one of the best shows I know for exploring relationships - friendships, but also and particularly heterosexual romance.
I realize that one can scarcely turn on the TV without wallowing in heterosexual romance, but I haven’t seen many shows that explored the idea of what makes a good match quite like Desperate Romantics. It’s one of the few shows I’ve seen that definitively and for all time broke up one of the lead pairings. My jaw actually dropped. He apologizes, and she forgives him, but...they’re not getting back together. Ever. He blew it and it’s over.
Lest I give you the impression that it’s all misery all the time, one of the three romances is extraordinarily sweet - I mean that in the least syrupy way possible; it’s sweet in part because they have to overcome so many enormous and entirely real obstacles before they can be together.
And the show never wallows in misery: it’s frequently hilarious, although it’s hard to really capture that by quoting it, because so much lies in the delivery and the set-up. The performances are all first-rate (although I must note a special fondness for Rosetti, because he commits to the ridiculousness of his role so whole-heartedly); the show is just really, ridiculously well-made on every level, and I want everyone else in the world to see it so you all can discuss it with me.
(I have chosen this icon with the shameless hope of luring viewers. Look at Rosetti’s face. Don’t you want the chance to watch that ridiculous face for six hours?)
I yearn, yearn to convince more people to watch the mini-series Desperate Romantics, about which I wrote three whole posts - one post for every two episodes! - while I was watching, because I loved it so much and it was so good and there was so much to say about it.
The miniseries is not about the Romantic poets, as the title might lead you to believe, but about the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - specifically John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rosetti (with an able assist later in the series from Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris) and their respective ladyloves. It does play rather fast and loose with history - telescoping, for instance, decades of Millais’ career into the few years covered by the show. But it’s one of the best shows I know for exploring relationships - friendships, but also and particularly heterosexual romance.
I realize that one can scarcely turn on the TV without wallowing in heterosexual romance, but I haven’t seen many shows that explored the idea of what makes a good match quite like Desperate Romantics. It’s one of the few shows I’ve seen that definitively and for all time broke up one of the lead pairings. My jaw actually dropped. He apologizes, and she forgives him, but...they’re not getting back together. Ever. He blew it and it’s over.
Lest I give you the impression that it’s all misery all the time, one of the three romances is extraordinarily sweet - I mean that in the least syrupy way possible; it’s sweet in part because they have to overcome so many enormous and entirely real obstacles before they can be together.
And the show never wallows in misery: it’s frequently hilarious, although it’s hard to really capture that by quoting it, because so much lies in the delivery and the set-up. The performances are all first-rate (although I must note a special fondness for Rosetti, because he commits to the ridiculousness of his role so whole-heartedly); the show is just really, ridiculously well-made on every level, and I want everyone else in the world to see it so you all can discuss it with me.
(I have chosen this icon with the shameless hope of luring viewers. Look at Rosetti’s face. Don’t you want the chance to watch that ridiculous face for six hours?)
