Upcoming Television Season

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Sat December 13th, 2008, 12:08 am

and why aren't I in a relationship with Arthur Clennam?

Isn't it obvious, Alice? He's so smitten with me, he hasn't time for anyone else!!! LOL - He was rather lovely...if a bit slow on the uptake!! LOL

Well, we're none of us any the wiser and I am mightily relieved that I wasn't being super-stupid in not getting it. When you eventually plough through to the end of the book, please reveal all!! Miss Waide and Tattycoram seemed to be a bit of an irrelevance...as did the story of the marriage of the girl from Tattycoram's original family - and the artist...it all just fizzled out.

I absolutely love Dickens but I have to say some of his stories seem to get so far, filled with brilliant plots but then lose their way. The most disappointing of all was "Our Mutual Friend" - it had a brilliant build-up; a couple who were kind but then came into a lot of money and became very nasty...and then, at the end, they basically said, "We were only pretending to be nasty to test other people."??? It reminded me a bit of how we write as children, with great ideas, then run out of steam and say, "And it was all a dream..."

Can't be of any help, but I was excited to see that this is coming to the US in April! Perhaps you will understand the end and can explain it to us...because we obviously don't get it

John Alderton makes an unsual appearance as a 'bad guy' pretending to be good - and that was a bit of an irrelevance as well...Hmm...

Arthur Clennam does look rather pleasing to the eye.

Indeed

, and it was worth watching just for him

.

Carine · Post by **Carine** » Mon December 15th, 2008, 6:15 pm

Christina & Alice :
You are not the only ones to be left with a lot of questions on Little Dorrit !
As I understood it : Arthur's so called mother wasn't his mother, she took him away from his mother and never told him. Little Dorrit was the illegitimate child of the old lady (so called Arthur's mother) 's husband.
The money didn't go to little dorrit at first but to her father (well the man she believed to be her father) when he died it was supposed to go to her and her sister Fanny but since he had invested all of it in the bank that went bust it was all gone.

And uhm ..... yes isn't Matthew Macfadyen gorgeous !!

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Tue December 16th, 2008, 3:01 pm

Oh...thank you for this, Carine

...And now I am even more confused!! LOL
So Little Dorrit would have been Arthur's half-sister, except his father wasn't his father?? Ho-hum, sounds to me like Dickens began the story with them being half-siblings but then the love interest came in and he had to change it and make Arthuir someone else's to avoid the incest! (Come to think of it, wasn't Dickens close to his sister...or am I just confusing him with Lord Byron??). I suppose Fanny's dancing thing suggests she inherited that from her mother, and the illegitimate child was the child of a dancer...so that would make sense of that. But why had the old lady taken Arthur? And whose child was he? And why did the house suddenly fall down?? LOL!!! And what was the relevance of Miss Waide and...and...and...
I guess I shall have to make my New Year Resolution be to read the book!

alice · Post by **alice** » Tue December 16th, 2008, 6:02 pm

[quote=""Carine""]Christina & Alice :
You are not the only ones to be left with a lot of questions on Little Dorrit !
As I understood it : Arthur's so called mother wasn't his mother, she took him away from his mother and never told him. Little Dorrit was the illegitimate child of the old lady (so called Arthur's mother) 's husband.
The money didn't go to little dorrit at first but to her father (well the man she believed to be her father) when he died it was supposed to go to her and her sister Fanny but since he had invested all of it in the bank that went bust it was all gone.

And uhm ..... yes isn't Matthew Macfadyen gorgeous !!

[/quote]

I watched the repeat, and I think that what happened was.......
Arthur's father was the man he called father, who urged him to put things right. Mrs Clennam was not his mother, but had taken him away from his real mother, who had had a liaison with his father. The real mother was forced into a workhouse, where she died, but not before Arthur's grandfather, (his father's father) found out the whole story. He, (I think) made the legacy to LD, bestowing an inheritance on a child born in the Marshalsea on the same day, (but a few years later) than Arthur. So they are not related. However, old Mrs Clennam had obviously kept this from the Dorrits, hence her appeal to forgive her. I'm still not sure about where/how the Dorrits got their money, as Pancks did all the detective work there, didn't he, and I don't think that that inheritance was to do with the Clennams, but I could be wrong. I still don't know how Rigaud knew it all. I will have to finish the book.

And yes, MM is lovely. Funny how his initials spell mmmmmmmm!

Carine · Post by **Carine** » Tue December 16th, 2008, 6:06 pm

Hahaha, I can imagine you are even more confused now Christina !

)
But even though I caught some of the story, I too was left with a lot of questions.
I haven't got a clue as to why the old lady had taken Arthur away from his real mother and I just assumed that the house fell down because it was in such a poor state and apparently the old woman didn't have any money to maintain it. Miss Wayde, well somehow she knew the old lady had taken Arthur because she had this box with baby socks at the ebd there didn't she, so I assumed she kept it a secret. Why ? I wouldn't know, and how ? I don't know either. Somehow this story seems to have an awful lot of loose ends !
I wonder whether the book gives any more explanations though, if it does then the BBC made a very bad job of it and that is something we're not at all used to from the BBC so I doubt it.
Anyway, if you read the book, will you let me know ? Cause I'm not planning on reading it .... too many books on my TBR pile already !!

chuck · Post by **chuck** » Mon December 22nd, 2008, 5:09 am

Raymond Khoury's "The Last Templar" is in production NBC is planning a 4-1 hour mini series planned for April 2009....I admit I read it last year.... a bit of a cheesy read....Khoury is a screenwriter and I sensed it when I read his novel...Oh well I'm a sucker for The Lost Legions/Eagles, Arthur, Vikings, the Crusades etc.....And yes I will watch "The Last Templar".......BTW Mia Sorvino is the lead actor

SonjaMarie · Post by **SonjaMarie** » Thu January 8th, 2009, 5:59 am

For those of you who read the series and have HBO, starting March 29th "The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency" begins.

SM

diamondlil · Post by **diamondlil** » Thu January 8th, 2009, 9:14 am

I am looking forward to watching this when it comes on here

Madeleine · Post by **Madeleine** » Thu January 8th, 2009, 12:21 pm

[quote=""SonjaMarie""]For those of you who read the series and have HBO, starting March 29th "The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency" begins.

SM[/quote]

I'll be interested to hear what you think of this. It got mixed reviews when shown in the UK last Easter, personally I thought they changed it quite a bit from the book and most people I know didn't like it very much!

SonjaMarie · Post by **SonjaMarie** » Thu January 8th, 2009, 6:04 pm

I don't read the series and I have way too many shows I watch as it is, so I probably won't watch the show, sorry.

SM