I, Claudius; Shogun; Roots
Another vote for I, Claudius. I love Derek Jacobi.
The original Forsyte Saga, although I haven’t seen the recent remake, so maybe that is also good. This is my absolute favorite.
Did you read the book?
They completely screwed up the ceremony where Avalon made Arthur king. Morgaine was not a cringing virgin shivering in the conjugal bed, she was enthralled in the ritual and welcomed Arthur eagerly. Don’t even get me started on her marriage to Uriens. They completely glossed over the importance of that relationship.
And making Mordred a thug instead of the Machiavellian politician that he was? Please.
I was so looking forward to this mini-series that I felt ill after it was over, like someone had punched me in the stomach.
I know it’s only one version of the Camelot tale, but if you’re going to adapt the book, do a good job with it. Don’t cut things out and change how things happened!
My lameass vote is for the Hornblower series. They rocked.
This would fit better at Cafe Society.
::majestically waves mug–and spills coffee::
Off it goes.
Veb
The Six Wives of Henry VIII (the 1971 version with Keith Michell- NOT the remake a year or two ago [which was okay but nothing at all to compare with the original) and its sequel Elizabeth R. (I call it a sequel not just because Elizabeth was Henry’s daughter but because figures who were important in both lives [Catherine Parr, Abp. Cranmer, etc.] are played by the same actors with appropriate aging.)
Both of these miniseries were very low-budget by today’s standards (you could probably make both for whatever Jane Seymour got paid for her last miniseries gig) but relied on excellent acting and writing that makes you completely ignore the videotaped studio sets and lack of grittiness. Just when you thought no RADA grad could surpass Keith Michell’s portrayal of Henry from the handsome athletic idealistic Renaissance prince wannabe of his late teens to the old, bloated, petulant, impotent, worldweary and tyrannical bully of his 50s, along comes Glenda Jackson with a portrayal of Bess from 14 year old pawn to 23 year old schemer to middle aged dynamo to wizened legend in clown makeup and never once makes you doubt the woman’s brilliance, compassion, vindictiveness or still hurting child. Both were brilliant and even dealt with complex political issues (Protestantism v. Anglicanism, foreign successions and alliances, etc.) that no historical miniseries of today would likely go near.
Man, the BBC of the 70s was just cooking with gas, weren’t they? These two, *I, Claudius, Upstairs Downstairs, *etc. (and I believe it was against the law to make any multi-part production that didn’t feature either Brian Blessed or Bernard Hepton and preferably both).
In addition to those already mentioned, I’ve always had a soft spot for “Flambards.”
The Duchess of Duke Street.
The best. No question.
Well, that doesn’t help; I was born in '83. :smack:
Damn repeat miniseries! Thanks though. 
Sampiro I’ve been wanting to see {i]The Awakening Land ever since you mentioned it on (I think) one the threads about the Little House books. I can’t imagine how I missed it on it’s original run – I was hugely into mini-series at that time.
My vote goes to Testimony of Two Men – I only saw it the one, original time (in 1977ish), but it has loomed large in my memory ever since. I’d just love to see it again, but, alas, it isn’t on video/DVD.
I vote for a tie between A&E’s Pride & Prejudice and Lonesome Dove.
Thornbirds was also excellent.
I’m sure Holocaust and Roots were excellent but I never saw them in their entirety.
The best American mini-series was, IIRC, the first one ever made – QB VII with Anthony Hopkins and Ben Gazzara. I just got this on DVD and, after 30 years, those courtroom scenes never get old. Amazing cast, too.
The best British mini series has to be a tie between the Masterpiece Theater productions of Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People and the House of Cards trilogy with Ian Richardson.
Roots and **Roots: The Next Generation ** don’t hold up well, although I enjoyed them as a kid. I liked Shaka Zulu better.
I really enjoyed A Very British Coup. At three 50 minute episodes it just fits the miniseries definition.
I had the opposite experience: I didn’t like Roots and Roots 2 as a kid, probably because they made me uncomfortable (after all it’s historical fact that slaves liked being in the fields where they sang and if they were really good they got to look after white children). When I saw it again in my 20s I was surprised at how well done many parts of it were and how they even got into issues such as plantation debts and slave-rape which was still very racy at the time.*
Roots: TNG has one of my favorite two hours of TV ever. In the final episode James Earl Jones played Haley as he co-wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X (played by Al Freeman, who gave a very different performance than Denzel Washington and who later played X’s mentor cum nemesis Elijah Muhammad opposite Denzel), interviewed American Nazi Fuhrer George Lincoln Rockwell (an insane performance by Marlon Brando) and ultimately travels to Africa and hears the griot’s tale intersect with his family’s oral history. Great TV.
*The worst thing about Roots today (to me) is that it can’t help it’s unfortunate cheese quotient caused by so many 60s/70s TV stars. John Amos, Ed Asner, Lorne Greene, Robert Reed, Sandy Duncan, Chuck Connors, Carolyn Jones, etc.- it’s almost as if they filmed it during a break at Battle of the Network Stars. When one remembers that the original choice for young Kunta was Ernest Thomas (Raj from What’s Happenin’?), that could have been the “one wafer thin mint” that would really have toppled it into TV Land joke fodder.
Sampiro. Slaves sang work songs to pass the time during long hours of sweltering, back-breaking physical toil. It’s a weird aspect of slavery (and later, sharecropping) that while the singing was undoubtedly enjoyable, the work they were made to do wasn’t pleasant at all, and gives rise to the misconception that slaves just looo-Oooo-oved to pick cotton. If there was a choice between picking cotton in monotonous quiet without singing and doing the farm work while belting out a few rows of “Camptown Races” – it’s a facet of slave culture that you’d prefer to sing.
Also, “Uncle Remus” aside, working field slaves were almost never put in charge of slaveowners’ children. Trusted older slaves and house slaves, sure.
The 70s actors cheese factor – some with really questionable acting skills and casting choices (O.J. Simpson, for one) is one of the things that makes revisiting Roots less enjoyable than it should be. The fact that Lorne Greene won an Emmy for his role and LeVar Burton and Lou Gossett didn’t is one of those things that annoys me to distraction.
Uh, yes, I know. I was being facetious. I grew up in the very rural south only a decade after Jim Crow when the Magnolia Myths [e.g. “slaves weren’t whipped”, “slaves were like members of the family”] were still in force; after decades and decades of mammies and field slaves who sang like well directed choirs and shuffling old tap dancing men who loved the white chirren were the primary representation of slaves in film, Roots was one of the first shows to present slaves who were willing to die to be free, the despair of a mother seeing her child carried away in ropes and certain to be raped and knowing she will never see her again, etc., and I can still remember the all white faculty of the Christian elementary school talking about its historical inaccuracies and how it was all propaganda, etc…
I also remember the joke that went around at the time:
Did you hear that Alex Haley committed suicide?
He found out he was adopted.
Hijack, but something I thought was interesting: When he died Haley was doing research for a companion to Roots in which he traced his Irish ancestry. This was through his paternal grandmother, Queen (basis of the novel and miniseries [which wasn NOT good]). An irony was that when he met & interviewed his closest relatives, the ones still near the plantation in north Alabama where Queen and her planter father lived, they were cold or swore that there was no truth to her claims that her father (their own white great-uncle, great-great-grandfather, etc.) or that they would not go on record and it was a long time ago and we should all forget about it.
The family name was Jackson and they were distant cousins of Andrew Jackson, so much of the Irish research was already done. When Haley got to Ireland (a year or so before his death) and met descendants of the same ancestors as the American Jackson family, his reception couldn’t have been more different. “Everybody! Pints on me! This is my cousin Alex, a famous author from America!” His skin tone didn’t bother them in the least and they were thrilled to meet him.
- Band of Brothers
- Roots
- From the Earth to the Moon
- I, Claudius
Man, I caught a whiff of that whoosh way the heck over here.
If anyone opens a thread for worst, I nominate The Langoliers for making not one iota of sense whatsoever.