Dickens Sickens

What the FUCK is going on at the BBC?
This is the 200th birthday of England's greatest storyteller, so how does the state broadcasting corporation celebrate this anniversary? With a desecration of Great Expectations so unholy that South Park's own version was more faithful to the spirit of the original.

I suppose I should have been warned when they changed the ending of Bleak House to make it less creepy for people with no brains, but I had really been looking forward to seeing Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham after her magnificent Lady Dedlock in the last adaptation.

Things started promisingly enough. Ray Winstone looks the part as Magwitch, but of course he can only play Ray Winstone so things started to go downhill as soon as he opened his mouth (sorry … "marf").

Mercifully, the art director made a good job of the bleak marshes but he may just as well have set the whole thing in a circus for all the good it did.
Okay, so cutting the book down to three hours is difficult and you're going to have to miss out on a lot of atmosphere and character development and even some minor characters. David Lean managed the task amazingly well.
But to entirely gut the book and replace the story with a completely different plot with vapid soap dialogue and a tragically unsympathetic leading man (apparently he models for Burberry and that's precisely how he acts) is a recipe for disaster.

And disaster is what we've got.
Who is credited as the writer?
Surely Charles Dickens?
No …
A TV soap writer who 'did' Holby City and East Enders.
For fuck's sake.
It shows. It REALLY fucking shows.

Picture the scriptwriting sessions:
"The art director has come up with a really pretty butterfly theme for the credits, so let's introduce a completely new character who collects butterflies, sticks them with needles and then dies."
"Yah! It'll be like … er … some kind of metaphor or something."
"And we'll get rid of most of Dickens' boring old characters and write something that'll appeal to twelve year old teen vampire fans. I mean who needs The Aged, or Biddy? Who needs the Pockets or Trabb's boy or Clara's father? They might have been tremendously important to the story but come on, guys, we're writing a soap here!"
"And don't forget to get Pip and Estella to strip off and stand in a pond and do lots of panting and stuff."
"Yah. Sex it up."
"And Joe's way too simple and dull; let's make him into a boorish thug."
"We want more totty so we'll introduce Clara early and have her swan around and say stupid things like "I knew it was you, Pip. You're such a good friend." like she's on Twitter or something."
"And we want a baddie, so we'll turn Drummle into a scenery chewing stock soap nasty like Phil Mitchell in East Enders."
"And don't forget to get Pip and Estella to strip off and stand in a pond and do lots of panting and stuff."
"I think we did that already."
And so it must have gone on …

I managed to watch the first episode without smashing my telly, but last night's abortion had me gaping in stunned disbelief at the sheer jaw-dropping audacity of the trash writing on display. Dickens must be spinning furiously in his grave. People who've not read his books will think HE wrote this drivel. This utter crap. This cheap, tawdry teen soap.

Gillian Anderson struggles manfully but is hobbled by dialogue so trite it beggars belief and a re-write of Miss Havisham's character that loses any shred of tragedy or pathos.
I couldn't watch.
I had to keep flicking away to a sub-titled Mongolian movie (true … and which was far, far superior).
Some masochistic urge kept me flicking back, however, but the final straw came when Ray Winstone emptied a sack of cash on the floor …

I know you guys are intelligent and you've all read and enjoyed Great Expectations and a lot of Dickens' other books, too. But a lot of people aren't that lucky. Some people might even think that this bilge is what Dickens really wrote.
If you know of anyone like that, please give them a copy of the book. Make them read it and tell them never, EVER to watch a BBC adaptation of any of Dickens' books.

And don't whatever you do, watch this worthless piece of shit yourself. The final episode is on tonight but my TV will be off; I really don't want to see the alien abduction, the scene where the dog rescues Tiny Tim from the well, to have to guess which one's the vampire and which the werewolf, or to watch the execrable East Enders "Nah! Pip! Don't! He's not WURF it!" vomit any longer.

Celebrate Dickens' birthday by re-reading his books. They're wonderful.

The BBC should hang its head in shame.