Midwinter of the Spirit

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!

I'm often asked what someone should watch. Well, if you're like me...you like a new world of wonder, a great story and being left with a "Wow"-feeling. I recommend this 3-episode miniseries to binge all at once.

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 (best seen before you read the book, or watched objectively). My only issue? Thank heavens for subtitles! I only have partial hearing and found some of the softer spoken actors impossible to hear without them. David Threlfall as Huw Owen absolutely owned the role he played. I sincerely hope there will be future adaptations of Phil Rickman's books, but with more episodes, as three hours wasn't long enough to do them full justice. 6 or 8 episodes would have been better. I look forward to watching without advert breaks. The locations used for filming were beautiful and atmospheric and the characters mostly well cast.