The Whiteoaks of Jalna

Mazo de la Roche's Whiteoaks series seemed like a TV screen writer's dream - several generations of colourful characters living under one roof, lots of sex, action, intrigue and humour, in a story spanning decades. They should have been able to turn this into another Forsyte Saga, so I couldn't believe how totally the CBC botched this project when they finally turned it into a TV series. If it had been tried a few years earlier, I think the producers would have played it straight and just made an entertaining adaptation of the story, but this was the angst-ridden '70s, when Canada's British and colonial past was an embarrassment to the clever-clevers at the CBC, so they just had to muck it up with all sorts of "creativity". In the end, the whole show was an unwatchable dog's breakfast, lurching back and forth to different time periods, telling no story consecutively, but shoving everything into flashbacks. Kate Reid fittingly played the matriarch, Adeline Whiteoak, but they also cast her as Rennie's daughter Adeline, in the present day, which was confusing and off-putting, as Reid lumbered about like a big horse, in a role that was designed for a lively, energetic young woman. I gave up on the story about halfway through, and never even saw the last episodes.

This miniseries was developed at the time that the Forsyte Saga was popular. it was meant to the CBC's answer to that. However the CBC's answer was an unwatchable and baffling mess. It was impossible to follow a coherent story line. Everything was shown in flashbacks over generations and characters came and went with no apparent coherence.

One particularly odd decision was to cast Kate Reid in two parts as a grandmother and granddaughter. The grandmother lay dying in her bed in the house for many episodes and then for no apparent reason roared up to the house driving a sports car in modern times. What the viewer was supposed to make of this is something only the director could tell.

The program was quite unpopular in English Canada for the simple reason that nobody could understand what was going on on the screen. However, true to form, the Canadian media blamed Canadian for not supporting Canadian talent. The series was later re-cut into a more understandable form and shown on the CBC. There was little reaction to this.

As others have pointed out, this baffling mess of a program did not help the perception of Canadian television. However it must be said that the CBC can claim the distinction of creating the worst miniseries in the history of television. With a bomb like this, Canada could rule the world.

I'm lying a bit here - I didn't see much of it, but I feel it needs to be mentioned: For at least the next decade, Jalna was a running joke when dealing with Canadian programming. Those that designed and pursued the project wanted a great classic mini-series in the same successful strain as Upstairs Downstairs in Britain and various mini-series becoming popular in the United States, but with a Canadian story to try to demonstrate the relevance of the nation's literature. Unfortunately, a story that was somewhat slow and formula-bound when RKO did it in 1935 became very slow and over-played as the main suspense was wondering how long it would take for something interesting to happen, or even develop. Was it poorly done? Not really, it was just the wrong story for the time given to tell it, and not really a competitor to what was being developed by American and British producers.

It took a generation for CBC drama to live down the memories of The Whiteoaks of Jalna and bring back a willingness among the audience to give Canadian television drama a chance. It also gave English Canadian private broadcasters an excuse to *not really try* with drama on the argument that it wouldn't have a chance of getting an audience.

I've never managed to see the show, but the reviews tell me all I need to know, beginning with the casting of a middle-aged woman as the youthful Adeline and the 1970s anti-colonialism of the writers. Author Mazo de la Roche did not sentimentalize the Whiteoaks' fidelity to England so much as poke gentle fun at it—what did she do to deserve this treatment?

The Jalna books were recently reprinted, and a TV series could be a smash hit. But there must be no other agenda than telling a really great story. And no one should be allowed to work on it without the guidance of those who know the books inside out and love them, starting with me. Let's get on with it!