Midwinter of the Spirit

I've read and reread all of the Merrily Watkins books and enjoy them very much. I accidentally discovered that some of them had been made into a mini-series, during my latest reread, and went off to find them. I shouldn't have been surprised; so often a favourite book is filmed and it just doesn't work. Though there was a quality to this miniseries that made it seem hopeful. But really, I had to force myself to watch the final episode, and only because I'd gone to the effort to download them, and hated to waste the bandwidth.

They have played with the characters, and the story-line to the point where it has pretty much nothing to do with a really great series of books. The characters are shallow and sketchy, the plot is contrived, and pulls the more extreme bits from several books and bodges them together without logic. What is subtle and complex and a really good psychological thriller as a book, doesn't even come across as the usual pumped up crime drama, but just irritating and wrong. I'm really disappointed.

Good supernatural drama these days on TV is as rare as Hen's teeth, as the saying goes.

Well done to ITV for presenting new and original drama such as this which the BBC has long given up doing.

I didn't previously know about the novels upon which this series was based.

In any event, there is a real hunger, I am sure, for non-formulaic supernatural/crime drama and I do hope to see another series.

All the performances were top-notch and the production values were good.

For those who have belief in these things, the fate of the world is not determined by sociological forces but by what perhaps the Middle Ages more clearly saw as the eternal struggle between Good and evil.

I liked the first episode of Midwinter of the Spirit, and look forward to future episodes. The biggest complaint I have is one that is fairly constant for many series and mini-series - the background noises, whether music or other sound effects, often overpower the dialogue. Some actors easily overcome this problem because their voices carry well enough that they can be heard and understood. Other actors are, naturally I suppose, more soft spoken, and I have to strain to understand what they are saying. For me, this really takes away from my enjoyment of the show. I found this to be true of this show, as much as any other. Otherwise, my rating would have been higher. I wish those in charge of sound effects would be more cognizant of this. As for those soft-spoken actors, I would exhort them to SPEAK UP!

Excellent mini-series. This is how I want to watch TV (I'm 8 years late with the review but it's currently on ITVX). Succinct, compact, no wasted or drawn-out scenes. Three eposodes is perfect. Get it over with in a night.

Okay, so it's a little predictable villain-wise, but it weaves mysticism, religion, history, probably a fair bit of mumbo-jumbo, family problems, and is creepy enough to make you check that your doors are all locked before you turn in at night.

It's also a detective story as much as anything; think the da Vinci Code in Hereford. Sort of.

Get a bottle of wine out and knock yourself out.