"Great Expectations" on PBS Masterpiece

I liked it Gilian was scary looking.... I'm guessing that was the point...

Except for Gillian Anderson sounding like Moaning Mona, I liked it, too. I'm also trying to get through the 1946 version, on ThisTV a couple weeks ago.

It's a new spin on the venerable old chestnut. I had my doubts in the first half hour but decided I liked it pretty well.

The Lean version still rules, except, as Pauline Kael pointed out, in no universe could Jean Simmons have grown up to be Valerie Hobson.

Gillian Anderson made some awful acting decisions in the role of Miss Havisham. I usually like her work and she was of course wonderful in the X-Files, but that was something out of dinner theatre tripe. Outside of that problem the first hour was solid. Hopefully we get the Ethan Hawke version of Great Expectations on Blu-ray sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately the tapes of the version that PBS got from the BBC used a motion interpolation standards conversion from 25 fps to 29.97 fps and is not reversible like Downton Abbey is.

What is even worse is that the BBC has only released a DVD of this program, no Blu-ray.

One could criticize the kinder and gentler Miss Havisham and Estella. I thought Anderson playing her as a lost, still beautiful, damaged soul was interesting. But the meeting with Jaggers left little doubt about that plot point that is so crucial in the novel.

I was glad to see that Andrew Davies was not involved with this. I haven't cared for much of any of his scripts except maybe the 1995 Pride and Prejudice.