Great Expectations

Sunday night was the premiere of the new PBS Masterpiece Theater version of Great Expectations.  It did not disappoint.  If you didn't catch it, you can watch the first installment by clicking the link above, and then make sure that you catch the conclusion this Sunday night on PBS.


I eagerly awaited this version of Dickens's great story.  I was at first surprised by the casting of Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham, because she is so young and I had always pictured Miss Havisham as an old woman.  I absolutely loved Gillian as Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, though, so I knew she would be perfect in another Dickens role of a woman tormented by her past.  I loved that Miss Havisham was younger-ish in this version.  It makes what she has allowed her life to become to be even more tragic, because she is still young enough to have a life full of joy and she has thrown that all away over a past disappointment.

All of the casting is perfect.  I cannot wait to see how the story plays out this weekend.  My sister texted me Sunday night that "grown-up Pip is a dreamboat."  I had to wait a whole day to find out that she was absolutely right, because I crashed early Sunday after our wild day in the car coming home from Utah.

After the basketball game was over last night, I grabbed the remote from Jacob and told him it was time to watch Great Expectations.  I expected the teenage boys to leave me alone.  But they stuck around, and they were captivated from the very first moment Magwitch came up out of the marshes.  They watched the entire episode, and didn't want me to tell them anything about how it is going to end next week.  Teenagers hooked on Dickens.  It makes a mom proud.