I’ve been meaning to rewatch the 1983 Mansfield Park miniseries but I’ve been getting sidetracked all week. I’ve watched three other period dramas instead. I’ve also been meaning to get going on my reread of Jane Eyre, but instead of that I’ve been doing Loco Sudoku puzzles! I’ll get to both eventually…
Anyway, the first thing I watched was a two part miniseries called Going Postal. It’s based on a book in a series called Discworld by Terry Pratchett. It’s not really a period drama so much as a costume drama- It’s got a magical, Dickensian-ish feel with the Victorian inspired costumes and settings. The world is located on the back of four elephants who are on a giant turtle…I haven’t read any of the series but from what I’ve read about it and from watching this adaptation, it’s a comical cross between Dickens and fantasy. There are a lot of actors from Dickens or other classic novel adaptations in it too. You can see a few just in the picture:
The story is about a con man named Moist von Lipwig (yes, most of the names are funny like this) who is sentenced to hanging and then given a second chance to turn his life around- by becoming the new postmaster. No one in town really uses the mail, preferring instead something called Clacks (kind of like a telegraph system) and so the post office is not being run very well. Then Moist finds out that all the last postmasters died mysteriously. He keeps trying to escape at first but then starts getting into it and doing well. He falls in love with a tough, chain-smoking woman named Adora Belle Dearheart. But things aren’t all smooth sailing as he starts having visions about the consequences of his cons on their victims (including Adora’s family) and he falls in danger of getting killed too.
This series definitely made me interested in Terry Pratchett’s works! Don’t know if I’ll have time to read them any time soon but one day it would be fun! I think if you like fantasy series like Harry Potter and such as well as costume dramas you should like this show.
My Rating: 8/10
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