scarlet812-593-111967

The 1946 version of this story is still the best, IMO, though I did also enjoy the 1999 and 2012 versions., But this one...who cast this mess? The actor cast as young Pip is way too old, and young Estella is made up in such a manner as to be not even close to pretty. Smh And the writing is worse...Pip's mean sister is portrayed as a secret sadist with Pumpblechook as the willing object of her sadism...it's practically unwatchable. I've seen several versions of what is an amazing novel, and this is the worst of the worst. The book has plenty of great material, with some plot points that would make great TV yet never seem to get included, but this version seems to go out of its way to add things that are not necessary and just downright stupid. I am 2 episodes in and still not sure I will be able to get through the rest. The actors are good, but I feel sorry for them having to play out such lousy material.

No one truly knows what Cleopatra really looked like, so I don't have a problem with the casting. I know there are some theories about her having been of African/Greek ethnicity, but nobody really knows; the casting of black actors in this is a silly thing for people to get worked up about. I've read several historical fiction biography style books about her. I'm a historical fiction fan, not a historian, so my beliefs on her story are just that - my beliefs. Every modern depiction of her and her story is largely fiction, because as they say, history is written by the conquerors, so Roman dislike of her probably played heavily into how she was written about. A lot of what regular people think they "know" is from movie or fictional books, and a lot of info is based on Shakespeare's play. Watch it with an open mind and don't think that what the narrators are saying is 100% accurate, as they don't know for sure either. Granted, the historians have studied a lot more material on her and know way more than us non-historians, but among themselves, they also have their personal opinions and those tend to come in when they have to fill in the blanks on parts of her story. It's a very interesting show, and gorgeously produced.