Shardlake on tv; For All Mankind 4.05
Dec. 8th, 2023 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI just found out Disney will do an adaption of the Shardlake mysteries by C.J. Sansom, aka my favourite novels set in the Tudor era bar none. The current idea is a season per novel, and they've started on filming the first season based on Dissolution . There's one immediately obvious big change for readers, i.e. Jack Barack will already be in this one, when in the novels he doesn't become Matthew Shardlake's sidekick until the second novel. But I can see the reason for this change - Barack is the second most important character in the series, he's far more interesting than Mark Roper, Shardlake's assistant in the first novel, in a climate where it's by no means guaranteed a show won't be cancelled if it's not an immediate success you'd want the audience to meet Barack and get introduced to the Shardlake/Barack dynamic right away. There's just one thing Roper does which Barack definitely won't do in the novel's big climax, but the result this has can be achieved in a different way. And I could see Cromwell, who asigns Barack to work with Shardlake in the second novel, do so in the first novel's case alreaady, so no problem there. Speaking of Thomas Cromwell, while Shardlake and Barack are played by up and coming actors who aren't yet internationally known (which is good, it means they can make the roles their own), Cromwell will be played by none other than Sean Bean. (Which I'm greatly looking forward for. Cromwell - spoiler for history - is only in the first two novels for obvious historical reasons, meaning he'd be in the first two seasons of the tv show -, and he's neither the Stalinist opportunist of older fiction nor the Renaissance superman from Hilary Mantel's trilogy; Sansom's Cromwell is an ambiguous character whom Shardlake might get disillusioned with but whom (and whose memory) Barack remains loyal to through all the novels, and a great role for Bean to play.
Of course, whether or not this tv show will work will stand and fall with the ability of the main actor. I haven't seen Arthur Hughes in anything yet, but his wikipedia page looks promising - he's played Richard III for the RSC, the first disabled actor to do so. (Matthew Shardlake's disability is an important part of his character and how people in Henrician England react to him. Not to say a not disabled actor couldn't have played it, or that a disabled character could only play characters who are disabled as well, but there are few heroes with a disability in fiction, Shardlake is one of them, and I like he'll be played by an actor who knows what it's like.) Age wise, he also fits, because Matthew Shardlake is indeed in his early 30s at the time of Dissolution. (If the show will indeed cover all the novels, there's plenty of time to age along with the character.)
The adaption is written by Stephen Butchard, who also wrote the scripts for the tv version of The Last Kingdom, and heightens my optimism. Both because I really liked The Last Kingdom, the tv show - much more than the novels - , and because one of the things I specifically liked about the tv show as that it dealt better with the female characters, fleshing them out, making them three dimensional. Like I said, I love the Shardlake novels, buuuuuut the first two novels aren't exactly stellar in that regard, either. In a different way than Cornwell's novels, I hasten to add. Shardlake is the anti Uthred in terms of his love life, or lack of same. Anyway, both Cornwell's and Sansom's novel are written in the first person, but one of the benefits of the visual medium is that we can get characters from outside the main character's pov, and I suspect Alice in Dissolution and Lady Honor in Dark Fire might benefit from this. (The later novels offer a greater variety of interesting female characters. Including an excellent Catherine Parr.)
For All Mankind 4.05: I've been wondering why the show deliberately kept not spelling out what exactly happened to Danny Stevens between seasons while making it guessable he died. Turns out they did it so they could put those flashbacks into the epside where Danielle doesn't just argue with Ed, no, she's forced to do something that she knows will break him the way Danny was broken, i.e. remove him permanently from flight status and as XO. Of course, like Danny, you could very much say Ed broke himself. He knew he had an (increasing) condition that was endangering everyone else. He had every chance to return to Earth not just in this year but the years before, he had a daughter and grandson to return to. It was Ed who decided that being in space and being able to fly was the most important thing, the thing he could not live without. Now I think part of it is his age. A younger Ed was also defining himself as a pilot first and foremost and could be very selfish, but he would have prioritized the danger to others he was posing. But not anymore. And my heart broke for Danielle who had to make that decision, but at the same time I would have hated it if the show had let her prioritize her friendship with Ed over the lives of others. That's just not who she is. Both because she's one of the most responsible characters on the show, and also because she is able to do that incredibly hard thing which Dumbledore in the first Potter book credits Neville Longbottom for: standing up not to your enemies but to your friends when your conscience tells you they're wrong.
Past influencing present was a theme in several other storylines as well: Kelly, who gets the chance to return to Mars in order to conduct her robot program there herself but with the prospect of leaving her son behind for at least a year, her son who knows through Ed never returning through he always promised to what "going to Mars" means, and Dev whose mother we meet here for the first time. S3 gave us two versions Dev tells of his father as part of his motivations, but here we see his mother - who seems to be a community organizer and charity worker - formed him just has much, through her absence and her leaving. (BTW this reminded me of John Le Carré's parents; the conman father issues were front and central, but the absent mother following right behind, with him on the one hand understanding why she left his father but on the other not why she left himself and his brother.) I like that the show doesn't do this scene with Dev's mother in a vilifying (vilifying her, that is) way - it was clearly a no win situation for her - but yes, it had an influence.
We end the episode with Dev, Kelly and her son heading to Mars, while Aleida gets promoted/shoved to representing Helios on Earth by Dev and will have to do that immediately in an emergency M7 summit in the Soviet Union. Now here I had to mightily suspend my disbelief. Yes, Karen went from housewife to bar owner to chain of hotel manager to Helios CEO, but that was a process which took years and offered her far more time to learn about business negotiations and the manager side of things. Aleida, as she herself points out, is an engineer with zilch experience in company management, let alone a giant company like Helios. (Not least because she never did become flight director at NASA.) On a Doylist level, this clearly happens so she can find out Margo is alive and encounter her again, which I do urgently want to see, of course, but on a Watsonian one? I suppose Dev's just high handed and "I make my own reality" enough that I can buy it as an action on his part (and also, he's so rich and has been rich for so long now that "what if Aleida completely fucks up as CEO and tanks the company" isn't really a concern to him), but still...
Again, though: of course I want to see Aleida and Margo - we never did get that scene where Margo tells her why she did what she did, after all - , and Aleida vs Irina, bring it on! So I guess my disbelief, it will have to be suspended.
This is also the episode where Ilya finds out Miles has been selling Mars rocks behind his back despite Ilya telling him explicitly not to. I honestly thought that vodka or whatever it was was poisoned when he poured Miles a drink in the last scene. But I suppose he'll deal with the situation another way. My second guess was that he'll frame Miles as the sole black marketeer and let the enterprise go bust, while rebuilding different sales lines, but given Miles can easily denounce him, that's too risky for Ilya.
And Sam will head the asteroid catching mission, meaning the audience will have a character they now know and care about whose life will be on the line. Given her comments to Miles, I also peg her as the most likely candidate to start a much needed union on Mars once that's done, and given Dev has just decided he'll permanently move there, we'll find out how he deals when confronted with the exploitation his company is responsible for directly.
Of course, whether or not this tv show will work will stand and fall with the ability of the main actor. I haven't seen Arthur Hughes in anything yet, but his wikipedia page looks promising - he's played Richard III for the RSC, the first disabled actor to do so. (Matthew Shardlake's disability is an important part of his character and how people in Henrician England react to him. Not to say a not disabled actor couldn't have played it, or that a disabled character could only play characters who are disabled as well, but there are few heroes with a disability in fiction, Shardlake is one of them, and I like he'll be played by an actor who knows what it's like.) Age wise, he also fits, because Matthew Shardlake is indeed in his early 30s at the time of Dissolution. (If the show will indeed cover all the novels, there's plenty of time to age along with the character.)
The adaption is written by Stephen Butchard, who also wrote the scripts for the tv version of The Last Kingdom, and heightens my optimism. Both because I really liked The Last Kingdom, the tv show - much more than the novels - , and because one of the things I specifically liked about the tv show as that it dealt better with the female characters, fleshing them out, making them three dimensional. Like I said, I love the Shardlake novels, buuuuuut the first two novels aren't exactly stellar in that regard, either. In a different way than Cornwell's novels, I hasten to add. Shardlake is the anti Uthred in terms of his love life, or lack of same. Anyway, both Cornwell's and Sansom's novel are written in the first person, but one of the benefits of the visual medium is that we can get characters from outside the main character's pov, and I suspect Alice in Dissolution and Lady Honor in Dark Fire might benefit from this. (The later novels offer a greater variety of interesting female characters. Including an excellent Catherine Parr.)
For All Mankind 4.05: I've been wondering why the show deliberately kept not spelling out what exactly happened to Danny Stevens between seasons while making it guessable he died. Turns out they did it so they could put those flashbacks into the epside where Danielle doesn't just argue with Ed, no, she's forced to do something that she knows will break him the way Danny was broken, i.e. remove him permanently from flight status and as XO. Of course, like Danny, you could very much say Ed broke himself. He knew he had an (increasing) condition that was endangering everyone else. He had every chance to return to Earth not just in this year but the years before, he had a daughter and grandson to return to. It was Ed who decided that being in space and being able to fly was the most important thing, the thing he could not live without. Now I think part of it is his age. A younger Ed was also defining himself as a pilot first and foremost and could be very selfish, but he would have prioritized the danger to others he was posing. But not anymore. And my heart broke for Danielle who had to make that decision, but at the same time I would have hated it if the show had let her prioritize her friendship with Ed over the lives of others. That's just not who she is. Both because she's one of the most responsible characters on the show, and also because she is able to do that incredibly hard thing which Dumbledore in the first Potter book credits Neville Longbottom for: standing up not to your enemies but to your friends when your conscience tells you they're wrong.
Past influencing present was a theme in several other storylines as well: Kelly, who gets the chance to return to Mars in order to conduct her robot program there herself but with the prospect of leaving her son behind for at least a year, her son who knows through Ed never returning through he always promised to what "going to Mars" means, and Dev whose mother we meet here for the first time. S3 gave us two versions Dev tells of his father as part of his motivations, but here we see his mother - who seems to be a community organizer and charity worker - formed him just has much, through her absence and her leaving. (BTW this reminded me of John Le Carré's parents; the conman father issues were front and central, but the absent mother following right behind, with him on the one hand understanding why she left his father but on the other not why she left himself and his brother.) I like that the show doesn't do this scene with Dev's mother in a vilifying (vilifying her, that is) way - it was clearly a no win situation for her - but yes, it had an influence.
We end the episode with Dev, Kelly and her son heading to Mars, while Aleida gets promoted/shoved to representing Helios on Earth by Dev and will have to do that immediately in an emergency M7 summit in the Soviet Union. Now here I had to mightily suspend my disbelief. Yes, Karen went from housewife to bar owner to chain of hotel manager to Helios CEO, but that was a process which took years and offered her far more time to learn about business negotiations and the manager side of things. Aleida, as she herself points out, is an engineer with zilch experience in company management, let alone a giant company like Helios. (Not least because she never did become flight director at NASA.) On a Doylist level, this clearly happens so she can find out Margo is alive and encounter her again, which I do urgently want to see, of course, but on a Watsonian one? I suppose Dev's just high handed and "I make my own reality" enough that I can buy it as an action on his part (and also, he's so rich and has been rich for so long now that "what if Aleida completely fucks up as CEO and tanks the company" isn't really a concern to him), but still...
Again, though: of course I want to see Aleida and Margo - we never did get that scene where Margo tells her why she did what she did, after all - , and Aleida vs Irina, bring it on! So I guess my disbelief, it will have to be suspended.
This is also the episode where Ilya finds out Miles has been selling Mars rocks behind his back despite Ilya telling him explicitly not to. I honestly thought that vodka or whatever it was was poisoned when he poured Miles a drink in the last scene. But I suppose he'll deal with the situation another way. My second guess was that he'll frame Miles as the sole black marketeer and let the enterprise go bust, while rebuilding different sales lines, but given Miles can easily denounce him, that's too risky for Ilya.
And Sam will head the asteroid catching mission, meaning the audience will have a character they now know and care about whose life will be on the line. Given her comments to Miles, I also peg her as the most likely candidate to start a much needed union on Mars once that's done, and given Dev has just decided he'll permanently move there, we'll find out how he deals when confronted with the exploitation his company is responsible for directly.
