Great Expectation - The BBC's big festive drama. Really enjoyed it. However, in my mind Miss Havisham has never looked like Gillian Anderson - which was a really good reason to cast her. It made sense that this younger, beautiful woman should seek to wreak revenge on men, having been left at the alter and condemned to a life as a ghost at her own decaying wedding feast. Pip, however, was far too beautiful, what is it with leading men these days, this guy looks like Kiera Knightly and was prettier than Estella who should have been an amazing beauty but wasn't. Choices were made for this new adaptation and unfortunately Joe Gargery didn't get the really happy ending he does in the book - just a man-hug from pretty-boy Pip. Ray Winstone shone as Magwitch and David Suchet just commands the screen whenever he's on.
Treasure Island - Sky TV's big festive drama. Two hours of adventure squeezed into four. Whose idea was it to make a pirate story look like an episode of NYPD Blue? Great cast, though Eddie Izzard did occasionally start to do that slurry thing he does as he goes off on an improvisation. I like Philip Glenister, I really do but he should NEVER attempt accents. His Captain Smollett had bits of Cockney, Lancashire and Welsh.
The Royal Bodyguard - The BBC's big Christmas comedy. The trailers for this got it absolutely right. It's horrible. Not since Micawber has David Jason looked so out of place. I hear the reason he said yes was because he had always wanted to play Inspector Clouseau. The Pink Panther films, even at their broadest, never got as broad as this, or as downright stupid. The sainted Jason has two great comic performances in his locker - Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses and Granville in Open All Hours - so there's still a lot of goodwill in the comedy bank. The kindest thing the BBC could do with this is play the rest of the series out on BBC 4 before seven pm. When the station is not on air.
Three Men In A Boat - Dara O'Briain, Rory McGrath and Griff Rhys Jones were back for another aquatic two-parter. There's something very watchable about the three of them as they go off on these comic documentary adventure. Though comic is probably the wrong word, good-natured or amusing would be better. There's a competitiveness between the three which explains why, what started with three men rowing the Thames, following in the oar strokes of Jerome K Jerome, has worked so well over so many different journeys. Three Men go to New England was their seventh outing, this time they journeyed along the New England coast, eventually joining the birthday party flotilla celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. Great fun.
Dr Who - BBC's big festive sci-fi drama. Starring Matt Smith as the doctor - I wasn't sure I was going to like him but after five minutes of his first outing as the Time Lord I understood why he's been cast. He makes a terrific alien. The Christmas day show featured Claire Skinner - the Mum in Outnumbered, a comedy still churning out laughs.But seeing her as Mum on Christmas Eve and then as a wartime housewife on Christmas day did leave me wondering about the small pool of talent producers pick from these days. This Dr Who Christmas episode had all kinds of echoes of Narnia. If like me you'd just watched the film of The Chronicles of Narnia you could be forgiven for feeling like you'd eaten two Christmas puddings.
Downton Abbey - If you regularly read this blog you know I don't watch it - but those close to me do and the sound of purring would seem to suggest it was good Christmas fair.
The Borrowers - A former Dr Who, and an actor of great range, Christopher Eccleston could not be more unlike Pod from the Borrowers books and yet here he was wonderful as one of the teeney tiny people who live under the floorboards. Aisling Loftus gave us a more grown up Arrietty than we've seen, or read, before. Stephen Fry made a splendid cartoonishly mad scientist baddie and Victoria Wood was the worried Gran who kept thinking she saw small people scurrying about her lounge. Perfect family entertainment.
Absolutely Fabulous - The return of the BBC's comedy warhorse. Felt more like the return of a carthorse. Sure the studio audience 'laughed' uproariously at everything - there was a shot of a door that got a belly laugh the like of which any comic would die for. The Killing's Sarah Lund turned up for a cameo that struggled to work. I know this show has a very loyal following - hell, there was a time in the 90's when I would not have missed an episode - but now? The scene/montage where Eddie and Patsy go on a retail frenzy just pissed me off. Against the austere background of 2011 it just didn't make sense and was frankly offensive. But then, compared to The Royal Bodygurad this was comedy gold.
Of course the absolute hghlight was Sherlock, about which I've already written.
Now, what has 2012 got in store for us?
I agree with everything you said here; very accurate.
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