The BBC

they’re only showing a couple episodes a week to stretch it out

I'm not bothered about NORMAL PEOPLE being longer or shorter in relation to the pandemic.

I just think it's long by normal standards, eg cf metrics given above. And this will affect viewing experience - just as if the book were 600pp about the same material it would be a different reading experience.

I agree with Koogs that they should really start showing more good old material. Maybe they're already doing that to a degree. They did show WOLF HALL but I suppose that was in relation to the recent novel. They could go much, much further back. BBC4 in particular could show tons of old PLAYS FOR TODAY and 1960s DR WHO. Or start with BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF.

I agree with Vague that people talking to each other by computer is not making for good TV. Nor is Gary Lineker.

they are advertising new old things on iplayer, comedy box sets. but the comedy is absolutely fabulous and extras. and nighty night, and french and saunders. and 9 series of 2 packets of crisps.

(and some good things too)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/comedy-box-sets

I watched the first episode last night and it appears to be progressing at about the right pace. Adaptations - especially of big 19th Century novels - tend to truncate scenes and focus on key moments. The average length of a scene in a BBC Dickens adaptation is pretty short, whole chapters are usually condensed into a couple of minutes, and the adaptations themselves don't especially suffer from that.

But that approach would kill Normal People stone dead - without any interior monologue the relationship between the two main characters, the awkwardness and everything unspoken between them, needs time and space to convey itself to the viewer. It felt unhurried rather than padded out, although that may change later in the series. It's based around five or six fairly discrete moments in time IIRC and every one of those could easily get at least an episode.

Not seen either of the two leads before but they were exceptionally well-cast, the guy that plays Connell especially.

My feelings FWIW after 7 episode, 3.5 hours:

First hour rather frustrating, slow, not going anywhere very interesting.

Episode 3-5 then picked up greatly for me - perhaps just because it was Dublin and TCD and I enjoy seeing these familiar places. A little bit of the content of their interests was filled in also, eg: his English seminars.

By episode 7 I can still see the indulgent appeal but I'm starting to find the on-off relationship rather ridiculous as the basis of a drama - it could go on literally forever (like a soap opera I suppose).

There is a very strong sense of a drama about almost nothing - two people who are blessed with success (in episode 7 literally almost the only ones in the prestigious college to get prestigious scholarships) getting alternately moody about how much they like each other. I've perhaps never seen a more 'first world problems' story.

But then, I think part of me likes this, because I'd often like dramas to be more realistic and more about ordinary nuances. There are aspects of the relationship that are very recognizable to me, and thus offer insights. The sex scenes are part of this too. All this connects to the unusual length of the series, ie: I can see the case for making it so long, and maybe other series should be equally stretched out for better effect.

I have found, though, that Marianne has started to irritate me a lot. Connell remains more likeable perhaps. His restraint, refusal to engage, tendency to deflect, is well played and recognizable. I also quite like the fact that he combines being PHYSICALLY STRONG with (apparently) being intelligent - which means he has the best of both worlds (see above re: lack of problems and tensions) but also sort of avoids a stereotype of the sensitive weakling or the insensitive big oaf.

PS: an exception to the 'no real problems': Marianne has a brother who is universally horrible. In episode 7 it's explained that he's horrible because he's jealous of her success. But he was horrible before, when she was consider an oddball. His nastiness adds some 'jeopardy' and tension to the mix, OK - but it's so extreme, inexplicable, absolute, that it's out of kilter to everything else, like the basically realistic TCD crowd; it doesn't fit.

It's not that she is someone with no real problems (far from it) it's that those problems are never ever talked about because the two main characters are completely emotionally inarticulate.

(It may be that the adaptation has changed or dispensed with some key stuff in her past, I'll shut up until I've seen the whole thing)

LOL BBC website...

The increase brings Russia's total number of coronavirus cases to 134,686, the seventh highest tally in the world.

But Russia's mortality rate remains low relative to other countries, such as the US, Italy and Spain.

Though maybe I shouldn't be laughing.

A week from now that'll be "low relative to, er, the US".

One day I heard this rolling WS news report on how the French economy hasn't been fucked this much since '46. Yeah quelle surprise.. I wonder if this is happening anywhere else.

I've only watched 2 eps of Normal People, I'm assuming things actually happen in this at some point? I do actually like it, I'm mildly confused by how old they're meant to be (took til the end of ep 2 to twig that Dublin Murders cop was his mum not his sister). So far nearly everything Marianne has said has been about how she's not like the other girls too, yet seemingly confident. Perhaps that's less obvious in the book, idk? Anyway I'm sticking with it...

Yes, similar reactions to you, Kinder. I have 2.5 hours to go in this and will finally be able to get the measure of it after that - maybe end of this week. FWIW I do think that the episodes after the first two are an improvement.

the 80s tv adaptation of Brideshead Revisited is 11 episodes and runs 12 hours (first and last episodes are over 90 minutes).

the first six and last six episodes of Normal People are directed by different people and the first six seem to me to be much better crafted/ more aesthetically interesting. I really liked the bulk of it but the last few episodes strained my credulity and by the end I had completely soured on it to the extent that when I caught the Italian villa on terrestrial tv I was actually intensely irritated by it's solipsism and, imo, needless cruelty.

Italian villa episode, that is.

It's true about the odd change of director halfway through.

I think I liked episodes 3-5 best.

It's true that BRIDESHEAD was long - surely too long. That book is not vast (say 300 pages?) and it's almost completely dreadful anyway. The fact that, as you say, it received so much dramatised airtime now seems awful.

I'm glad to agree with Jed about these last episodes and the rubbish Italian villa nonsense.

Had no idea about the Normal People split - that explains a lot.

The stakes don't seem high enough in Normal People to justify the torment dealt to Marianne, in my opinion. I can believe that a mother could, irl, support a son who had beaten up his sister and broke her nose but I don't accept it in the service of this particular story and I find the fact that so many people find the story romantic to be worrying.

Again broadly agree.

It may well be that much more is going in the novel, or that it's a great novel. But the TV version has to be judged on its own terms.

In the TV version not enough is going on, not enough is at stake (as Jed says), and whatever problems characters have are not properly explained, despite 6 hours to do it.

It's attractive and appealing in a way but the longer it goes on, the less it stands up. By the last few episodes I couldn't help thinking it was pretty dire.

I thought this thread revival would be about Emily Maitlis and Newsnight!

I've started the Italian episode but not hugely incentivised to finish it, or the series.

Both leads are believably useless emotionally but Marianne has an unlikability that goes along with it. And I keep thinking we're supposed to Intuit more about her than we're presented - thinking about, for example, Sophie's clumsy attempt at organising a threesome; are we supposed to find Marianne's reaction sympathetic or pathetic? Romantic or deluded? I get the feeling it's definitely supposed to be one rather than the other, and I think I'm on the wrong side. Conversely, for someone who we're supposed to think is really just a bogtrotter Conner is woke af about rights to say no etc (even making a big point of it the first time they have sex) but at the same time is having no-strings hookups and nearly fucks his old teacher just because he can.

The strangest thing for me was writing off a large element of the greater cast as not worth it because "they're typical Trinity types" when one of the protagonists is exactly that.

safe to say I'll be giving "Football, Prince William and Our Mental Health" a miss unless at some point they conduct an experiment to see if kicking the fuck out of William's head has far more superior mental health benefits than kicking a football.

They should announce a s2 of Normal People and just make it about Lorraine cleaning houses and being lovely because she's absolutely the best thing about the show.

Conversely, for someone who we're supposed to think is really just a bogtrotter Conner is woke af about rights to say no etc (even making a big point of it the first time they have sex) but at the same time is having no-strings hookups and nearly fucks his old teacher just because he can

I don't think that's right - in the series he's super-intelligent plus he's been brought up by a very smart single mother with a keen eye for the way women are treated / mistreated by men. He's read Germaine Greer by the time he's 18! And in the incident with his former teacher he walks away even when absolutely hammered.

I didn't think this was brilliant but I found it more interesting than some of you seemed to - as a story about how people are formed and deformed by their circumstances and experiences (family, class, sex, blah blah) and how that plays through their good and bad behaviour and decisions, it was interesting enough. And it, like the novel, manages to be too on-the-nose about any of it I think. I think when both work best they absolutely leave some confusion about whether something's romantic or pathetic. I definitely recognised the pain of watching people who at base are decent are the same bad decision over and over again. (I liked the book as much as I liked the series FWIW, I thought both were good but not outstanding.)

New season of David Olusoga's A House Through Time started this week, it's Bristol this time. Great stuff as always, he's one of the main reasons to still tune in to the BBC these days.

Yeah, I saw that last night, great episode to kick things off. Looking forward to part two. I loved that they explained the 18th century political 'cartoon', explaining all the tiny details. 'The Sixth Letter' book in one's pocket, dragging a dead man to the polls to get his vote etc.

It's about Englands's slavery past - well, those who profited from it immensely - and I've been seeing more of that incidentally (even fucking Paul from FlogIt had a 'slavery was bad! It's going under hammer right now!' epiphany recently). I don't know if this is a new thing for England, but it's been noticeable.

Xps

Marianne's pain is more present in the text, even if the causes of it are more absent - in the figure of the monstrous father. One way of reading Marianne and the brother is that they both compulsively repeat the cycle of abuse. Which is a way of saying I 'believed' her more readily in the text. I think that's a function of the space of literature but that needs unpacking.

I keep coming back to the title. I think it's supposed to be provocative and the adjective is doing a hell of a lot of that provocation but it's there and my response is to think, well, how *about* some normal people then? The series, especially, is full of normal people and they're made out to be almost grotesque - there's not even a deferred glow, they're just shadow figures. What about his story - him with his worries about his small dick or her with her worries about body hair (just to focus on bodies)? That would be normal. Instead we get a fetishised, voyeuristic close-up of beautiful people being tortured by their genius and beauty, however little they understand these things. (Not that I don't enjoy looking at beautiful people being beautiful, but still.)

Anyway, that's all a rambling and confused.

(even fucking Paul from FlogIt had a 'slavery was bad! It's going under hammer right now!' epiphany recently).

lol

Slavery was also very much present in the previous seasons but it's more to the front in this one I agree. I like how upfront the presentation is: these are the people who lived in this house, this is how they made their money. Very hard to spin as activist historians or revisionism, though I'm sure if the show becomes more popular the usual suspects will have a go.

And it, like the novel, manages to be too on-the-nose about any of it I think.

?

Wonder if this should be: 'manages not to be' ?

One of the many problems with the programme is something it shares with tons of visual narrative, which is that it tends to be terrible at rendering literature, writing, reading - or sometimes even ideas and thinking.

Thus: by the end, we're told that Conor is an amazing writer. But the programme has shown us absolutely nothing that he has written that looked in any way amazing. At best, we have simply to imagine this quality. But given that it's presumably supposed to be so important to him, that's not very adequate.

At one point she says his emails to her were amazing. He jokes that they're better than his stories. Well, what we do see / hear even of their emails to each other are embarrassingly mundane. 'Normal' if you like. It's fine to write and send such emails. But it's not good for them to appear in a programme where it's implied that they're works of genius.

There was really so much bad about this programme that I should just give up thinking about it at all.

I still recognize that the book could possibly be much better.

Here's a better thing about the BBC: iPlayer currently hosts a load of terrific RKO films. I'm going to watch MY FAVOURITE WIFE later.

xp yes thanks PF, should have been not "not too on the nose".

Slavery was also very much present in the previous seasons but it's more to the front in this one I agree. I like how upfront the presentation is: these are the people who lived in this house, this is how they made their money. Very hard to spin as activist historians or revisionism, though I'm sure if the show becomes more popular the usual suspects will have a go.

― Daniel_Rf, Friday, May 29, 2020 2:04 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks, I didn't know that as I haven't seen all previous seasons. Agreed on how up-front it is, it really works. David Olusoga's delivery is very good for this approach.

This from the former deputy leader of North Somerset Council: https://t.co/qLBlvm6Djb

— Martin Booth (@beardedjourno) May 28, 2020

Can't believe there are thick ignorant racists in Somerset

Hold on, I've been led to believe that only working class people from the Midlands and the North can be thick ignorant racists.

"Some cruelty yes but"

XPs

At one point she says his emails to her were amazing. He jokes that they're better than his stories. Well, what we do see / hear even of their emails to each other are embarrassingly mundane. 'Normal' if you like. It's fine to write and send such emails. But it's not good for them to appear in a programme where it's implied that they're works of genius.

I have (had, actually, as they've mostly been forgotten) Thoughts about Normal People but this was one of them (also Aldo otm). Including how they're meant to be excellent writers - we see a flash of this in Marianne (as I've moaned about before - after the first two eps where she's mainly talking about how she's not like other girls) but not really anywhere in their communication for the most part. Is that meant to be some kind of irony? I watched the weird 'breaking glass in sink' 'flashback for most of ep' 'back to broken glass in sink' bit and didn't understand what had happened, then the next ep opened with another kind of flashback about this iirc? Like everything takes so long to spell out except the actually important stuff. That Jamie or whatever he was called was such a bloody pantomime villain too, was any of his character supposed to be anything other than bog standard sneery entitled Grange Hill bully? Did he and Marianne share anything on any intellectual level? Where did Peggy go?
I did like that the characters that seemed to help Marianne through everything were the 'normal' (ha) women, just by being there without anything to prove - Lorraine and the English flatmate with no mummy issues who was gently checking in on her the whole time.
I feel like lots of people got a lot from this series/book and I possibly just missed it all.
Also this https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/05/sally-rooney-normal-people-hulu-bbc-soap-opera

Well I got to the end. I guess the only time I really engaged with it was in Conner's reaction to the suicide, but when it was just turned into a narrative excuse for his behaviour which wasn't apparently different from before then I was just annoyed.

My big takeaway is that we make all our life decisions before we have the experience or emotional ability to make them.

ok all day the bbc news main headline has been about a rocket going into space. considering whats happening in th euk and around the world w/ covid an considering what else is happening in the us this is fn perverse. also how inefficient is the private sector, literally 50+ years behind the ussr

nick robinson currently doing an in-depth interview with someone from “the national diversity coalition for trump”

crucial stuff there...

i heard him the other day doing a jokey "you would say that wouldn't you, hoho" with a tory saying we should move on from dominic cummings. cunts all of them.

creditable job on the 10 of covering the protests. called them a continuation of historical injustice and grievance rather than an aberration. two live OBs.

now a fairly brutal piece on contract tracers “sitting on their arse”.

how come Today can’t do this?

Sarah Sands, next question?

yeah :(

New DG has been announced: Tim Davie.

Big news, I assume.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/05/bbc-appoints-insider-tim-davie-as-director-general

It's another white man but at least this time it's one with Big Croydon Energy.

I think the BBC will need a bit of a bruiser in the coming years, and he can be that. He's not genteel. He's capable of thinking in quite ruthless commercial terms. But I don't think he'll sell the corporation out - he's BBC to the bone.

He doesn't have a news background - so it'll be interesting to see what he does there.

hmm i see he is a tory

feck

The optics are...not great. Rona Fairhead was widely distrusted for being married to a Tory councillor. Davie was deputy chair of the local party.