Posted on 07/27/2014 7:40:44 PM PDT by MNDude
I don't watch TV much these days, so I can't say what have been popular miniseries in the past decade or so, but I remember there used to be big budget miniseries on TV all the time (A.D., The Winds of War, Roots. Etc). In your opinion, what were the greatest miniseries of all time?
I’m with you on Victory at Sea. Watched it every week. Wish one of the cable channels would run it.
Bingo!!
Winds of War / War and Remembrance
Holocaust
10th Kingdom
The Stand
Ditto. Best thing ever produced for TV IMHO.
I would respond, but I have no access to the internet.
Jean Paget was based on Carry Geysel (Mrs J. G. Geysel-Vonck) whom Shute met while visiting Sumatra in 1949.[1][2] Geysel had been one of a group of about 80 Dutch civilians taken prisoner by Japanese forces at Padang, in the Dutch East Indies in 1942. Shute's understanding was that the women were forced to march around Sumatra for two-and-a-half years, covering 1,900 kilometres (1,200 mi), with fewer than 30 people surviving the march. However, the Nevil Shute foundation insists that this was a misunderstanding, and that the women were merely transported from prison camp to prison camp by the Japanese. "Shute, fortunately misinformed about parts of her experience, mistakenly understands that the women were made to walk. This was possibly the luckiest misunderstanding of his life..." says the Foundation.[3]
Shute based the character of Harman on Herbert James "Ringer" Edwards, an Australian veteran of the Malayan campaign, whom Shute met in 1948 at a station (ranch) in Queensland.[4][5] Edwards had been crucified for 63 hours by Japanese soldiers on the Burma Railway. He had later escaped execution a second time, when his "last meal" of chicken and beer could not be obtained. Crucifixion (or Haritsuke) was a form of punishment or torture that the Japanese sometimes used against prisoners during the war.
The fictional "Willstown" is reportedly based on Burketown and Normanton in Queensland, which Shute also visited in 1948.[6] (Burke and Wills were well-known explorers of Australia.)
In a note to the text, Shute makes it known to the reader that a forced march of women by the Japanese did indeed take place during World War II, but the women in question were Dutch, not British, and the march was in Sumatra, not Malaya.
...so the population has to be my kind of people.
I really do love the people in this book! Noel Strachan is a true hero, also.
The book reviewer of the Guardian had this to say about the novel.
“Probably more people have shed tears over the last page of A Town Like Alice than about any other novel in the English language.”
They are very sweet tears, though. It is a wonderful story about three very good people, folks you feel like you know, and wish that you had actually spent time with them in person.
Here is the last page (the movie is exactly the same)
“I suppose it is because I have lived rather a restricted life myself that I have found so much enjoyment in remembering what I have learned in these last years about brave people and strange scenes. I have sat here day after day this winter, sleeping a good deal in my chair, hardly knowing if I was in London or the Gulf country, dreaming of the blazing sunshine, of poddy-dodging and black stockmen, of Cairns and of Green Island. Of a girl that I met forty years too late, and of her life in that small town that I shall never see again, that holds so much of my affection.”
Never had or watched a TV all his life? Like BS!
Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXnPz6YtJVI
Woo Hoo! Thanks for the link! The first time I saw "Alice" was in Kenya. It was on two VHS cassettes and we only had the first cassette with four episodes, which we watched straight through. We had to wait until the next day to borrow the second cassette to see the ending.
Glad to see a few mentions of “The Stand”.
I own that on DVD.
I wish some producer would take a look at remaking that, may over several theatrical release films, with today’s special effects, and much more character depth.
If done correctly, there’s a message about the difference between good and evil that the world needs to be reminded of right about now.
Wonderful! Thanks so much for the Historical backgrounder to a story which captured this old man’s heart many years ago while watching the series with my now ex-wife, the love of my life.
Not sure if it counts as a mini series, but hands down Ken Burns, The Civil War
“I’ve watched mini-series since Rich Man.”
I watched it too and enjoyed it very much. Thought it may have been Nolte’s best performance. I even liked that old communist Ed Asner in his role.
Yes, good cast, good story. I ever read the book.
And the first British mini-series to hit America: The Forsyte Saga.
Remember the scene on the Dick Van Dyke Show? Rob is at a poetry reading, and a snooty woman explains that she never heard of Alan Brady because: “You see, I don’t own a television machine.”
This really does not deserve a reply but I will acquiesce to give you one. I have better things to do than watch TV. Has that ever occurred to you? I can get my news from a number of sources, one being FR. I don’t need an attitude and insolence like yours. Why do you fell the need to insult someone you do not know? This proves my point; you need to have something better to do than insult an imaginary target on the web. Does that make sense? I already know the answer.
Eagle of the 9th (6 eps) 1977
Legend of King Arthur (8 eps)1979
Tripods don't count (too many episods)
May I be so bold as to point out that your post on this thread was an obvious attempt to show everyone else on this thread that, unlike the unwashed masses here on free republic who occasionally take a break from the drudgery of life and indulge themselves in a mini series that you... “Have better things to do than watch TV.”
Like any of us Neandrathals could care what a person who doesn’t watch TV has to say on a thread about what show they have enjoyed.
In essence you insulted everyone on this thread by dismissing the subject with your “I’m better than all of you” attitude. Good for you. Next time you don’t know a thing about a subject on a thread, may I suggest you find a thread that appeals to you and which you have a modicum of knowledge.
Sorry, you got it wrong again. Control? What control? I have no control over anything on FR. Are we on the same page? Evidently not. Case closed.
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