I watched a few episodes of it when it was being aired, and remember it as being incredibly boring and unrealistic. Recently I decided to rewatch it. Lots of other people were talking about how good it was, so obviously I thought there was something wrong with my memory. Maybe I'd just seen the bad episodes of an otherwise good series.
No, the whole series is like that.
The music is the only good thing about this series.
Lark Rise to Candleford is a loose adaptation of three semi-autobiographical novels by Flora Thompson. If it was any looser, it would fall off completely.
I only recognised a handful of the actors:
Julia Sawalha (Jessie in Cranford, and Mercy Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit) as Dorcas Lane
Brendan Coyle (Nicholas Higgins in North and South) as Robert Timmins
Claudie Blakley (Martha in Cranford) as Emma Timmins
Karl Johnson (Tungay in David Copperfield 1999) as Twister
Linda Bassett (Abby Potterson in Our Mutual Friend 1998) as Queenie
Peter Vaughan (Mr. Boffin in Our Mutual Friend 1998) as Rev. Ellison
Phil Davis (Smallweed in Bleak House) as Arthur Ashlow
Victoria Hamilton (Mrs. Forster in Pride and Prejudice 1995) as Ruby Pratt
Liz Smith (Peg Sliderskew in Nicholas Nickleby 2001) as Zillah
I watched series one torn between laughter and disbelief. The Christmas special left me speechless. Slogging through series two was a battle of Greek proportions. I spent most of the last few episodes in tears of laughter. That was the only way I could cope with this mess. And I can safely say I will never watch the third and fourth series.
LRC doesn't have a plot. It has a collection of plots, one or two to each episode. Its main characters are Dorcas Lane, a postmistress, and Laura Timmins, her assistant. It all blurs together so much in my mind that I can hardly remember any specific plots from it, except for one or two especially outrageous things.
In the first few episodes the problems with this series become apparent. Problem one: the very modern characters. The mark of a good period drama is that the characters act as if they're really in Victorian England/Tsarist Russia/Tang Dynasty China/whatever place and era it is. Lark Rise to Candleford has a collection of 21st century characters who for some reason have decided to dress up in 19th century clothes. That's it. They're only wearing the costumes, and making no attempt to fit in with the 1890s beyond that.
Problem two: the lack of a coherent plot. Some series have a new plot in every episode but manage to be very good series in spite of that. Jeeves and Wooster springs to mind. LRC doesn't. Its episodes follow a predictable pattern. A never-before-seen character appears, and is often treated as if they'd always been there somewhere, the plot revolves around this character, the episode ends, and both character and plot are completely forgotten in the next one, which continues the cycle. It's exactly as frustrating as it sounds.
Problem three: the caricatures. There are virtually no likeable characters, or even ones with a personality. And almost every character is a caricature. Laura, despite being the narrator, is as interesting as watching paint dry. Robert is an arrogant jerk who'd rather see his family go without food or clothes rather than accept charity. Thomas is always babbling about religion, and comes over as decidedly unhinged as a result. Dorcas is always right, always knows best, blah blah blah.
Problem four: the morals or lack thereof. It was an absolute scandal in Victorian England for a couple to live together without being married. Queenie and Twister would have been shunned by the whole village as soon as it became known they weren't married. Think of the mayhem Lydia and Wickham caused in Pride and Prejudice by running off and living together without being married. In this respect, things were no different in the 1890s than approximately eighty/ninety years before.
Problem five: that bizarre Christmas special. I still can't believe that someone looked at this sub-par series and thought, "What it needs is a ghost story." So we take a sudden and unexplained detour into the supernatural which is never mentioned again. Especially weird is that this ghost has supposedly been lurking around for eighty years, but no one has ever seen or heard of her before.
This is only scraping the surface of "what's wrong with LRC". I've never found a more disappointing, overrated period drama.
Is it available online?: Some episodes are. I don't know if the whole series is, but why would anyone want to watch the whole sorry mess?
Rating: 1/10.
I only recognised a handful of the actors:
Julia Sawalha (Jessie in Cranford, and Mercy Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit) as Dorcas Lane
Brendan Coyle (Nicholas Higgins in North and South) as Robert Timmins
Claudie Blakley (Martha in Cranford) as Emma Timmins
Karl Johnson (Tungay in David Copperfield 1999) as Twister
Linda Bassett (Abby Potterson in Our Mutual Friend 1998) as Queenie
Peter Vaughan (Mr. Boffin in Our Mutual Friend 1998) as Rev. Ellison
Phil Davis (Smallweed in Bleak House) as Arthur Ashlow
Victoria Hamilton (Mrs. Forster in Pride and Prejudice 1995) as Ruby Pratt
Liz Smith (Peg Sliderskew in Nicholas Nickleby 2001) as Zillah
I watched series one torn between laughter and disbelief. The Christmas special left me speechless. Slogging through series two was a battle of Greek proportions. I spent most of the last few episodes in tears of laughter. That was the only way I could cope with this mess. And I can safely say I will never watch the third and fourth series.
LRC doesn't have a plot. It has a collection of plots, one or two to each episode. Its main characters are Dorcas Lane, a postmistress, and Laura Timmins, her assistant. It all blurs together so much in my mind that I can hardly remember any specific plots from it, except for one or two especially outrageous things.
In the first few episodes the problems with this series become apparent. Problem one: the very modern characters. The mark of a good period drama is that the characters act as if they're really in Victorian England/Tsarist Russia/Tang Dynasty China/whatever place and era it is. Lark Rise to Candleford has a collection of 21st century characters who for some reason have decided to dress up in 19th century clothes. That's it. They're only wearing the costumes, and making no attempt to fit in with the 1890s beyond that.
Problem two: the lack of a coherent plot. Some series have a new plot in every episode but manage to be very good series in spite of that. Jeeves and Wooster springs to mind. LRC doesn't. Its episodes follow a predictable pattern. A never-before-seen character appears, and is often treated as if they'd always been there somewhere, the plot revolves around this character, the episode ends, and both character and plot are completely forgotten in the next one, which continues the cycle. It's exactly as frustrating as it sounds.
Problem three: the caricatures. There are virtually no likeable characters, or even ones with a personality. And almost every character is a caricature. Laura, despite being the narrator, is as interesting as watching paint dry. Robert is an arrogant jerk who'd rather see his family go without food or clothes rather than accept charity. Thomas is always babbling about religion, and comes over as decidedly unhinged as a result. Dorcas is always right, always knows best, blah blah blah.
Problem four: the morals or lack thereof. It was an absolute scandal in Victorian England for a couple to live together without being married. Queenie and Twister would have been shunned by the whole village as soon as it became known they weren't married. Think of the mayhem Lydia and Wickham caused in Pride and Prejudice by running off and living together without being married. In this respect, things were no different in the 1890s than approximately eighty/ninety years before.
Problem five: that bizarre Christmas special. I still can't believe that someone looked at this sub-par series and thought, "What it needs is a ghost story." So we take a sudden and unexplained detour into the supernatural which is never mentioned again. Especially weird is that this ghost has supposedly been lurking around for eighty years, but no one has ever seen or heard of her before.
This is only scraping the surface of "what's wrong with LRC". I've never found a more disappointing, overrated period drama.
Is it available online?: Some episodes are. I don't know if the whole series is, but why would anyone want to watch the whole sorry mess?
Rating: 1/10.
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