The Onedin Line

I've always been of the opinion that the 1960s and 70s was the golden era of English cinema and television.

"The Onedin Line" was an all class act. There was nothing slip-shod about this fine production. Being a keen history buff, it was always high on my list of viewing options. Indeed, the show enjoyed considerable popularity here in Australia because it regularly featured Australian references in its story lines.

The choice of Peter Gilmore in the title role of James Onedin could only be described as ínspired.

Some aspects of this series are probably a bit dated now but I recently watched a few episodes for the first time in many years and got a lot of pleasure out of seeing it again.

A must see for lovers of history.

A BBC serie. And the another definition becomes bizarre. Because it is the serie of many youths. Defined by costumes, atmosphere, the feeling of salted air, more than reasonable performances. And by a sort of flavour. Enigmatic, powerful, seductive, delicate, bitter. A serie about a man, his love and his ambition. And, sure, about the sea and the spirit of a period. All - impecable. And preserving, after decades, the fresh air of pure adventure.

I have finally been able (thanks to a generous poster on YouTube) to watch all 91 episodes of this series, having given up waiting for them all to be released on DVD in Region1. I know that a company called BFS Video released the first 8 episodes on DVD, but that was it. I emailed them to ask why they didn't release the rest, but did not get a reply.

I vaguely recall seeing a few episodes of this series on TV in the 1970's as a kid. I don't know if it was on PBS at the time, because I think there were commercials cut into the programs.

But at long last to be able to see every episode has been a treat. I found the earlier seasons the best and more interesting, but as it wore on to the later seasons, the flaws began to appear. Certain characters (who either got tired of their roles) were written out (or killed off) from the series too hastily and never appeared again. That is the writers fault and leaves unfortunate gap explanations.

But the attention to detail in terms of production design, costumes, and the ship scenes are standard quality for BBC programs during this period. As usual with these British productions during the 70's, they interweave (through editing) studio set videotaped scenes with outdoor filmed sequences, which is a bit annoying at times. Some gaffes here and there with continuity in terms of the characters clothing not matching in some of these spliced-together scenes.

Kudos go to Peter Gilmore who appears in all 91 programs and has to carry the whole series. He did an excellent job. Also to Anne Stallybrass, Howard Lang, Jessica Benton and Mary Webster. The Onedin offspring were not great actors, and I don't recognize them having appeared in subsequent BBC productions.

91 episodes is quite long and probably would never happen today. I used to think the original Upstairs,Downstairs was quite long at 63 parts or Poldark, until this one.

I recommend this series highly especially as I said, the earlier seasons.

I watched this series as a youngster and loved them all, glued to the, black and white TV and later, wow, in color (don't be mistaken all is in color, it just took long for we had a color TV). Now having bought all the series as soon as they came out I watched them all again. And, again. They are just wonderful stories, all 8 seasons long. Characters develop, are somewhat predictable, but highly entertaining. It was all made with low budgets and of course that shows. You will catch inaccuracies like for instance way to big master cabins on small ships, ships that are pictured trying to make you believe the 2nd ship is different but look carefully, it's not, it's the same ship, storms, well, storms are mere light breezes, and so on. Mostly studio indoors acting. But all of that does not matter really. I depicts a life from an era most people can't imagine how life was. Rich got richer, poor stayed poor. Nice costumes, entertaining events. So very British, so very BBC, so very 70's made. But all over a wonderful tribute to life at sea, life of those staying behind, struggling ship owners, cheating ship owners. A period drama like no other. Look at it, it lasted all of 8 seasons and it really ends in season 8, a real end, not just a series that was stopped making without an end. I would highly recommend it, but you have to like period drama's, not mind the inaccuracies and low budgets, and if you don't mind all of that you will be entertained.

Grand music, real drama, tall ships and Jessica Benton, how can you go wrong?

One way is to cram all the episodes together so that each DVD forms some kind of four hour movie version of 'The Onedin Line'. This means that the writing talent that went into giving us some dramatic flow in an hour show is completely crapped on. At odd points during your viewing, provided you've got four hours spare to do that, you'll suddenly get a bit of the Adagio from 'Spartacus' dropped on you like a piece of musical jetsam. And with only your memory to guide you as to where each episode ends, you end up with a very up and down experience and not what TV drama is all about.

I for one would've been keen to see the names of the actors in each episode, too, as I'm sure they would be keen for me to know who they were. Alas, even that is lost to us in some harebrained attempt to turn this magnificent production into something even David Lean could find a trifle lengthy and vicissitudes.

We can only hope the BBC doesn't try this again with the second series.