Hugh Laurie completists and House cultists are warned not to expect too much from this ambitious 3-part miniseries from '93. At first my wife and I were intrigued and impressed, then perplexed and finally disappointed; we spent at least as much time discussing it as we did watching it, and I've obviously put far too much time and effort into composing this review.
HL plays Leo Hopkins, a charming guy with a mid-level job in the City, a rich, adoring wife and a taste for luxurious living. We learn that he's already spent his next two years' salary, even though his wife pays most of the bills, but his friends assume (I wasn't sure why) that Leo could only have managed this through his own financial wizardry. They hand over large chunks of cash for him to invest, and Leo, who seems incapable of refusing any request from anyone, proceeds to (low level spoiler alert—though the picture on the N'flix webpage gives it away too) fritter it away at the track.
At this point, Leo says that he feels like a circus juggler with too many plates in the air, and scriptwriter Guy Andrews ends up in a similar fix by the beginning of episode 3. (This means that while disc 1 is quite entertaining—we watched it twice—disc 2 is a bit of a mess and only about 80 minutes long.) Long story short, Leo's got nothing when the Fraud Squad comes sniffing around, and Andrews tries hard, maybe too hard, to make it all seem like it means something by dragging in a weighty backstory involving Leo's vicar father, symbolic shots of burning banknotes and a couple of puzzling schoolboy traumas. I was hoping some intrepid online reviwer would have taken a stab at interpreting this sequence of arty, almost Bergmanesque b&w flashbacks; they're skillfully shot and edited but in the end seemed contrived, confusing and emotionally unconvincing. Did anyone who's already seen the series understand what the connection is meant to be between the Reverend Hopkins's whacky sermons, his drinking, groping and other manifestations of his unhappiness, and Leo's behavior as an adult?
HL's performance is fascinating, of course, and the supporting cast is first rate; the admirable Pippa Guard, as Leo's cheeky secretary, gets some of the best lines ("As my old Divinity teacher used to say, he looked like a dog with a sore cock"); as you can tell from this, the vocab would be suited only for premium cable in the US. Writer and director can't be faulted for lack of ambition, but good acting and snappy dialogue can't make up for a hole in the script big enough to drive a couple of spirited three-year-olds through
HL plays Leo Hopkins, a charming guy with a mid-level job in the City, a rich, adoring wife and a taste for luxurious living. We learn that he's already spent his next two years' salary, even though his wife pays most of the bills, but his friends assume (I wasn't sure why) that Leo could only have managed this through his own financial wizardry. They hand over large chunks of cash for him to invest, and Leo, who seems incapable of refusing any request from anyone, proceeds to (low level spoiler alert—though the picture on the N'flix webpage gives it away too) fritter it away at the track.
At this point, Leo says that he feels like a circus juggler with too many plates in the air, and scriptwriter Guy Andrews ends up in a similar fix by the beginning of episode 3. (This means that while disc 1 is quite entertaining—we watched it twice—disc 2 is a bit of a mess and only about 80 minutes long.) Long story short, Leo's got nothing when the Fraud Squad comes sniffing around, and Andrews tries hard, maybe too hard, to make it all seem like it means something by dragging in a weighty backstory involving Leo's vicar father, symbolic shots of burning banknotes and a couple of puzzling schoolboy traumas. I was hoping some intrepid online reviwer would have taken a stab at interpreting this sequence of arty, almost Bergmanesque b&w flashbacks; they're skillfully shot and edited but in the end seemed contrived, confusing and emotionally unconvincing. Did anyone who's already seen the series understand what the connection is meant to be between the Reverend Hopkins's whacky sermons, his drinking, groping and other manifestations of his unhappiness, and Leo's behavior as an adult?
HL's performance is fascinating, of course, and the supporting cast is first rate; the admirable Pippa Guard, as Leo's cheeky secretary, gets some of the best lines ("As my old Divinity teacher used to say, he looked like a dog with a sore cock"); as you can tell from this, the vocab would be suited only for premium cable in the US. Writer and director can't be faulted for lack of ambition, but good acting and snappy dialogue can't make up for a hole in the script big enough to drive a couple of spirited three-year-olds through
