The Village

The Village captures you with it's imagery, but holds you with the characters and superb acting. It's sometimes hard to watch as the grim reality of early 20th century rural English life is relentless.

The BBC should be praised for not giving it a coat of historical whitewash and trying to depict life in the period with with both the warts and the beauty. Ultimately it is the characters that you become invested in. Not the stock portrayals of the noble working class or morally vacuous upper class. The main characters have layers and depth that makes them both interesting and empathetic. They are brought to life by terrific performances and you believe them completely.

Overall this is superbly done.

Excellent photography and detailed realistic sets, dress, and etc. The bleak reality of farm life in a small isolated Yorkshire farm. When I think of England it is the England of the countryside , small villages and farms.This York. program is set earlier than Herriots era. It shows the brutal reality of life before social program s to aid in support. One could say this life was kind of glossed over in Herriots series and Downton Abbey dom. My wifes reaction was the series was depressing. I think it is a realistic one. A quality British TV program. I has it all. Ingrained idiot upper class, local folk in awe of these fools while carrying water and doing their scut work. Activist suffragette , innocent patriotic war fervor, WW1 and enlisting as a positive move up. Very limited prospects in the country - I think a mass movement to the cities had been happening during this period. Prospects n the UK had gotten worse as competition with other nations- Germany and the US intensified. Quality TV.

This is undeniably excellent, even I cried at the end because it was so poignant although I won't give the plot away. What makes this so good is that unlike a lot of normal period dramas that depict the mainly upper classes classes of this period, this looks at almost every aspect of life in the village during this period despite primarily focusing on one particular family.

I had the pleasure of visiting Derbyshire during the summer and was moved at how well it was depicted in this. The entire drama itself actually moved me to the point that it was something that I immediately wanted to see again. It shows that unlike the gloss of Downton Abbey, despite the fact that I do like that, life was actually very brutal for a large majority of people at the time. What makes this equally so moving is the fact that it left me with a certain numbness at the end and moved me to tears as though it reminded me of how precious life is and the beauty of England in equal measure.

I am having withdrawal symptoms from this now having watched the whole series and revisited episode 1.

Yes, it's pretty bleak at times - and it hardly breaks the stereotype of it being a tad grim up North - but then it probably was everywhere let alone Oop North when WW1 broke out- and as a massive John Simm fan, it's tough watching him play this unendearing character. But stick with it, and you are rewarded with seeing some amazing performances unfold. Maxine Peake deserves a special nod for her moving portrayal of Joe and Bert's mum. How much heartache can a woman take??? A lot, it seems.

It's beautifully shot, beautifully acted, almost incessantly grim, but you do care about enough of the characters to want to keep on watching.

I would recommend a second viewing as I am doing now, and enjoying it even more now I know what happens and can just focus on the performances and period detail done as only BBC can.

This is a real winner for me, and I am really looking forward to Series 2.

IN A NUTSHELL: Wonderful cast of talented actors, terrific cinematography. Terrible scriptwriting to the point where at times it's nearly unwatchable.

It would take far too long and too many words to detail what's wrong with this production, and you don't want the spoilers anyway. So I'll give you the mile-high viewpoint, and if you watch, see if you agree.

Above all, this is yet another depiction of the 19th and 20th Century chock-full of spurious 21st Century mores. As if people THEN thought the same way people do NOW. That ruins the historicity of it for me.

The writers are far too intent on preaching modernist socio-political thought to give you an accurate depiction of life in rural England in the 1910s, 20s and 30s.

In every instance of moral dilemma - which after all is what drama is inevitably about - what someone WANTS is always given precedence over what they OUGHT to do from a traditional ethical and moral perspective. In fact, "what one ought to do" is uniformly presented as stunted or even evil. No, you shouldn't honor your marriage vows if you FEEL like doing something else. No, you shouldn't hold fast to your religious convictions, because religion is for nutters. Feel like having sex on the spur of the moment? Go for it; it's what you WANT to do (outmoded ideas of moral fidelity are barbaric anyway).

I watched this because the actors in the drama manage to rise above bad writing and horribly inaccurate social history. The scenes of rural life are breathtaking.

But the story is not. It's maudlin, prissy and factually inaccurate.