The Onedin Line

Gosh, this is good.

I started watching the repeats as it's a programme that my parents used to watch every week and I remembered the great opening credits with the scenes of the ship out at sea and the famously romantic music.

For all its technical limitations, this show could give any modern TV series a run for its money. Fascinating historical detail, intelligent and well-rounded characters, great performances, and a profoundly gritty realism without being self-consciously so.

The women are also a joy: complex, able and utterly real.

Granted, the studio-bound scenes look really clunky, but this is offset by the myriad location work either in port or out at sea.

Recommended.

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.

I just discovered The Onedin Line,I ordered both DVD sets.I was totally hooked through each episode.The casting was perfect,and the acting was great.When I got to last episode I wanted to see more.I was delighted to see it ran for eight season.I was then very let down to find out the rest of the show is not available in the United States.I can only hope the rest of the series will be available in the future.I would definitely purchase the complete series if it were released.I would have rated this series a 10 if the picture quality was improved.The picture quality isn't too bad considering it was made in the early 70's.Anyone who loves British TV,history,and sea/ship dramas will not want to miss this.

Wonderful drama, great actors Peter Gilmore, Anne Stalleybrass, and marvellous soundtrack, it's true they don't make them like this anymore. This is when British tv was great.

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.