North & South (2004)

So I just got done with shoving my monthly recc's on CDRW (poor guy!) and because I've kept mum for over three days about anything and everything!, I'll do a bit of shameless plugging here.

I've been recently obsessing over this:

North & South

I found this drama quite by accident. It was netflixed to my Queue for ages and kept dropping to the bottom rung over and over again. I have to admit, I'm really not into BBC period pieces. A friend of mine forced me to watch Colin Firth's Pride & Prejudice (not his, but everyone seems to think he owns it) not too long ago, and I really didn't like it (aside from Colin Firth). I like my dramas to be like - well - moving pictures because I'm lazy, especially when I've already read the novel about a million times. P & P (1995) felt like a recital of the book, line for line, which is great for some people, but not for me.

And, yes, even though North & South follows pretty closely Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South (with a few variants to the original), I just didn't get the same feeling. And in contrast with the former, North & South brings to life social upheaval, strikes, unions, during the 1800's and death of key characters , something P & P characters would faint at the idea of.

So, all in all, this was an unexpected delicious piece of period drama that was just - well - unexpected. I'm glad I said " Oh, hell!" and just decided to let my Queue work out on its own, instead of re-arranging, which I tend to do when I'm bored out of my wits. I'm glad I purchased a copy and forced it on my friend over the weekends. And now I'm glad I'm 200 pages into the novel (it's really good).

All in all, I've had a great Labor day weekend. Hope you all did too.