Dickensian
Aug. 29th, 2016 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreDickensian is a big budget fanfic that serves as a prequel mashup of various of Dickens's works. The main works featured are Great Expectations, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol, and Oliver Twist. So, pretty much, most of the ones most people can name even if they've never read Dickens, or only have if it was assigned in school, though characters from several other books have minor roles, and there are references to other characters and books.
The central plotline is Inspector Bucket from Bleak House investigating the murder of Jacob Marley (Or, as I liked to call him, "Victorian Donald Trump." Go ahead look up a picture. They went out of their way there.) from A Christmas Carol, and the primarily secondary plotlines are the finacial difficulties of the Barbary family and eventual pregnancy of the future Lady Dedlock, Honoria Barbary (Bleak House), and Merrywether Compeyson's seduction of Amelia Havisham (Great Expectations)*, with lots of other, slightly smaller plotlines running around and intersecting. The Oliver Twist plots were, IMO, largely the weakest part. Nancy was a darling and the Artful Dodger was entertaiing, but a lot of it focused on the Bumbles, who had good actors and so were EXTRA irritating, the portrayal of Fagin was still somewhat antisemitic, even though they did seem to try to make that aspect better, and it was very awkward and diffiuclt to watch nancy and Bill Sykes but all lovey dovey when you know what happens. (And even more awkward to read tumblr posts by people who had no idea what their future was).
I actually listed the three main plotlines in opposite order of my personal interest. Inspector Bucket was fun and the murder mystery made for a good unifying plotline, but I never really cared who killed Marley, especially since almost all the possible suspects were still around years later in their own books, so you knew it was unlike that the killer would actually be punished when discovered. But the Barbarys and Havishams? Oh, all the drama and angst and secrets and doomed siblings. Especially the doomed siblings. Both Arthur Havisham and Frances Barbary love their sisters very much, but they're also overflowing with bitterness over how their more charming and loved sisters have been favored over them, though for different reasons. I've seen some people jokingly say that a theme of the show is that siblings ruin everything, but it would actually be accuruate to say that people's lives were ruined because siblings wouldn't put aside their issues and just sit down and TALK and work things out before things went too far. Also, Merrywether Compeyson ruins everything. EVERYTHING. His abuses of both Havisham siblings would probably be triggering to some people, but it's not gratuitous, and for once a show doesn't give us an abuser portrayed but an attractive and decently charismatic white guy and leave any room for woobification or reading him as "misunderstood" or redeemable, especially as he starts wrecking other peoples' lives to keep the Havishams isolated from outside help or influence. At the end of the day, the shows was all "Ok, mmmmaybe he actually was fond of Arthur and mmmmaybe he actually did fall in love with Amelia, but he is Satan, Evil Incarnate, a vile greedy abuser who ruins everything and aren't you mad at us for not going completely off script to have Magwitch show up and kill him RIGHT NOW?"
The first few episodes were well done but slow, but once it got going, it REALLY got going. There was talk about a second season following the same characters, but that talk was officially put to rest recently. Honestly, I'm glad? Because while I would have enjoyed a second season about characters from other books, there wasn't anywhere else to go in most cases except to just jump right into the main canons of the books. Everyone was in place and suitably sad and miserable as they waited for their respective Dickens canons to take over after their tragic backstories.
*Gillian Anderson played the latest BBC versions of both Lady Dedlock and Miss Havisham before this series, so I get an extra kick out of the fact that Dickensian made them be best friends here.
The central plotline is Inspector Bucket from Bleak House investigating the murder of Jacob Marley (Or, as I liked to call him, "Victorian Donald Trump." Go ahead look up a picture. They went out of their way there.) from A Christmas Carol, and the primarily secondary plotlines are the finacial difficulties of the Barbary family and eventual pregnancy of the future Lady Dedlock, Honoria Barbary (Bleak House), and Merrywether Compeyson's seduction of Amelia Havisham (Great Expectations)*, with lots of other, slightly smaller plotlines running around and intersecting. The Oliver Twist plots were, IMO, largely the weakest part. Nancy was a darling and the Artful Dodger was entertaiing, but a lot of it focused on the Bumbles, who had good actors and so were EXTRA irritating, the portrayal of Fagin was still somewhat antisemitic, even though they did seem to try to make that aspect better, and it was very awkward and diffiuclt to watch nancy and Bill Sykes but all lovey dovey when you know what happens. (And even more awkward to read tumblr posts by people who had no idea what their future was).
I actually listed the three main plotlines in opposite order of my personal interest. Inspector Bucket was fun and the murder mystery made for a good unifying plotline, but I never really cared who killed Marley, especially since almost all the possible suspects were still around years later in their own books, so you knew it was unlike that the killer would actually be punished when discovered. But the Barbarys and Havishams? Oh, all the drama and angst and secrets and doomed siblings. Especially the doomed siblings. Both Arthur Havisham and Frances Barbary love their sisters very much, but they're also overflowing with bitterness over how their more charming and loved sisters have been favored over them, though for different reasons. I've seen some people jokingly say that a theme of the show is that siblings ruin everything, but it would actually be accuruate to say that people's lives were ruined because siblings wouldn't put aside their issues and just sit down and TALK and work things out before things went too far. Also, Merrywether Compeyson ruins everything. EVERYTHING. His abuses of both Havisham siblings would probably be triggering to some people, but it's not gratuitous, and for once a show doesn't give us an abuser portrayed but an attractive and decently charismatic white guy and leave any room for woobification or reading him as "misunderstood" or redeemable, especially as he starts wrecking other peoples' lives to keep the Havishams isolated from outside help or influence. At the end of the day, the shows was all "Ok, mmmmaybe he actually was fond of Arthur and mmmmaybe he actually did fall in love with Amelia, but he is Satan, Evil Incarnate, a vile greedy abuser who ruins everything and aren't you mad at us for not going completely off script to have Magwitch show up and kill him RIGHT NOW?"
The first few episodes were well done but slow, but once it got going, it REALLY got going. There was talk about a second season following the same characters, but that talk was officially put to rest recently. Honestly, I'm glad? Because while I would have enjoyed a second season about characters from other books, there wasn't anywhere else to go in most cases except to just jump right into the main canons of the books. Everyone was in place and suitably sad and miserable as they waited for their respective Dickens canons to take over after their tragic backstories.
*Gillian Anderson played the latest BBC versions of both Lady Dedlock and Miss Havisham before this series, so I get an extra kick out of the fact that Dickensian made them be best friends here.