Titanic

Tale of the Titanic disaster in four parts. The first three tell the same basic story but through the eyes of passengers in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class (steerage). The story lines overlap and all meet in the same disastrous finale: the sinking of the ship.

Although there are no big names in the cast, several are familiar faces (Maria Doyle Kennedy, Linus Roache, Toby Jones, Steven Waddington, Stephen Campbell Moore, Celia Imrie, James Wilby, Linda Kash).

To my knowledge this is the only "Titanic" story that has included the real-life Dorothy Gibson (played by Sophie Winkleman), an American movie actress, who survived the disaster. Back in the US, she was rushed into "Saved from the Titanic" within a month of the sinking. She played herself, recounting the disaster, but was so overcome by grief, she suffered a nervous breakdown during the filming and retired from acting. The 1912 film was an absolute sensation, one of the biggest hits of the time. The film was tragically lost in a 1914 studio fire.

If you compare this four hour TV mini-series to the twelve hour "Titanic: Blood and Steel" series, which also came out in 2012, then this shorter series is more enjoyable. And even with a much smaller budget, they accomplished a much more captivating and entertaining series. And one that is not actually a drag to sit through.

The 2012 "Titanic" series focus on the ship and the stories of the passengers, which is what the audience wants to see. Unlike the twelve hours series of political drama and shipyard problems.

The acting in this series was good and they had some good talents on the cast list.

I will say that the practical effects and special effects team managed to pull off the effects quite amazingly. And the visuals do play a big part in a drama about the Titanic.

The costume and props department also did their job quite well, fleshing out the atmosphere nicely.

If you have an interest in the Titanic then you should take the time to sit down and watch this 2012 TV mini-series, because it is actually quite entertaining and good.

I'll admit, I wasn't overly impressed with the first episode. It seemed like it was something and nothing, but I tuned in next week because I had faith that the storyline would start to make sense. It certainly did. Anyone who felt like the first episode made no sense needs to see it as a game as tetris. Each new episode layers on top of the previous one and fills in all the gaps. Having watched all four episodes, I can say they interlink perfectly. I read that originally, the show would be broadcast over three consecutive nights with episodes 1 & 2 shown back to back. Perhaps if this had been done people wouldn't have been so quick to switch off. I think a lot of people are comparing this to James Cameron's Titanic, but if you want a different take on the actual sinking on the ship, then do watch this. Titanic (97) was centred on a fictional love story, therefore we saw everything from Rose's point of view - it was linear. This program shows several different perspectives and we are able to see the extremely different fates that would have befallen us depending on what our sex/class would have been. It includes some really heart wrenching moments that do not cushion you from what a traumatic experience it must have been. Absolutely worth watching each episode more or less at the same time. Several people have said "We see the ship hit the berg so many times, it detracts from the poignancy of it, what can the fourth episode offer?" It offers a hell of a lot! I gave this 9 out of 10 simply because I wasn't too happy with the first episode.

The DVD hasn't been released here yet but the 'mini-series' is now over. It is difficult to call this amalgamation of snippets about an historic tragedy a miniseries because it was spread out so unevenly (3 hours on first night, one hour on second night) and we are now informed that the film is a total of 184 minutes which means that the fourth hour was completely filled with the most distracting and disrupting of commercials. Why this new version of TITANIC wasn't place on cable television where it could have been enjoyed on one uninterrupted three hour showing is beyond understanding. Perhaps when the DVD is released and there are no loud and ugly commercials every 5 minutes the story will hold together.

Julian Fellowes, so respected for his writing of such series as Downton Abbey, etc. seems to have the urge to tell the story of the event through quick snippets of personal stories among the passengers - a commendable idea, but when the tiny tales are buried in the almost immediate collision with the iceberg and the attempt to flesh out the story by making it about how tragedy affects people's relationships come as little disconnected pop-ups, it is difficult to care about anybody, much less get to know them well enough to remember them at picture's end. Granted there are some moments before the ship is finished that emphasize the fact that the unsinkable Titanic was rushed to completion before it was safely ready, and those flashbacks to offer some interesting moments.

But basically the story is the same as all the other TITANIC movies - a study about class distinction not only among the peerage of Brits but also the differentiation among first, second and third (steerage) classes - with a hefty dollop of snubbing the crass American passengers. Jon Jones directs this amalgamation of ideas. There are some brief but tasty moments for actors such as Glen Blackhall (a memorable Paolo) and Antonio Magro (Paolo's brother Mario), Peter McDonald, Steven Waddington, Ruth Bradley Linus Roache and Geraldine Somerville as the Mantons, Toby Jones and Maria Doyle Kennedy, Celia Emrie, James Wilby and Dragos Bucur (the stowaway Russian). The rest of the cast is so little used that they all but disappear.

The film was apparently shot on digital video. Some of the effects are fine, but the whole film lacks cohesion - at least on the American release on commercial television!

I'm quite an avid Titanic enthusiast. Not as big a buff as I used to be, but I could probably still teach a couple of things. I wasn't expecting great things of this title (I have issues regarding things made by ITV), but as its the 100th anniversary coming up, I felt I should give this a watch, without trying to get to excited (although admittedly, I was really looking forward to watching it).

So far, I've only seen two episodes, and I have to say, while they aren't perfect, I feel that they are a good watch for a casual enthusiast of Titanic. Let me just touch on a couple of bad points.

Now, I don't know as much as a lot of people about the ship, but it does have some errors in historical accuracy, although reviewing from my perspective as somebody who knows a fair bit, but not a massive amount (or somebody, like me, who used to know, but is too stupid to remember...), I can say that you won't notice anything so bad that will ruin it for you, even though looking at the forums, some people seem to have taken great offence to this.

My main gripe with these episodes is that they are very rushed. A lot of effort has gone into the writing, but really I think there is too much going on and in such a short space of time to fit it in. While it was an interesting, if ambitious attempt at telling the story, I have to admit, I think that it would have worked better by going through in order, rather than chopping and changing the main characters every episode (although I have to say, it's nice they aren't doing a Cameron and just focusing on a couple of people). I'm hoping for the final chapter to be tighter.

Apart from the above, I really enjoyed watching the first two episodes and will be recording the final two as well. I'd really recommend this to someone like myself, it has some interesting characters and plots, and hopefully will be soon setting up to be an entertaining and engaging finale.