I didn’t read it either…

But I did read “Tale of Two Cities” in high school…you know, it was the best of times and the worst of times (kind of like today, although I think we’re leaning towards “worst”). And “Great Expectations” with Pip. But that’s it. As for reading Dickens in college… It was part of a course that required you to read books up to a thousand pages at the pace of one a week and if I actually did all the reading…I’d have no time to do anything else.

There have been all these stories recently how even in college students no longer read entire books. But the dirty little secret is always what college you go to. If you go to a classic liberal arts college, believe me, you will. As for studying business at a multi-university…I don’t know. Then again, my classic New England upbringing leaves me with a different view of college from most people today. College was not a place you went to to get a job, but to enrich your life.

Now I could go on a rant here about education… You do know that despite hating on teachers’ unions the goal of many is to starve public schools, to replace them with parochial schools… But I feel like I’m living in bizarroland. I just grew up in the middle class suburbs. Where education was treasured. And I won’t say necessarily rigorous, not for everybody, but I assumed this model continued to dominate, now I know that is not the case. And just one more thing here…although I don’t understand sending your kids away to prep school, I will say they get a much better education there. I was stunned at how well read my prep school compatriots were at Middlebury.

Not that I feel totally warm about Middlebury… I’ve mellowed, but it took me ten years to get over that place. It was a hothouse of conservatism where the students jockeyed for position and…the real world was not like that, god…if you just showed up every day you ended up ascending the job ladder quickly.

Anyway, I hope the title of this spiel doesn’t turn you off, because this 2005 BBC production of “Bleak House” is definitely worth your while.

Now before this we watched “Eddington,” which had a big buzz when it was released over the summer, there were articles and conversation but I’m not going to to go to the theatre… Once again, for many reasons, but…I find I can’t slow down enough to enjoy the picture, if nothing else. I can’t go from working steadily to calming down on demand.

Anyway, RottenTomatoes rates “Eddington” at  69/65 and I’d say that’s exactly right. Which is why I’d refrained from watching it previously, my threshold is 80, but the film continues to pop up in my reading so we delved in.

“Eddington” rang my bell at first, it’s a perfect depiction of the maelstrom we presently live in, with beliefs on the left and the right, arguments between the young and the old, but they throw in everything, including the kitchen sink, it’s overplotted, and you end up disappointed at the end.

Which is why I found myself on Metacritic researching TV series. Once again, I like the character development in series, the greater depth, even though the educated classes, Hollywood royalty, still think movies are the sh*t.

So I’m looking at the best TV series of all time on Metacritic, and not far from the top I find a 2005 remake of “Bleak House.” And wanting to watch something good, we dove in.

Now you can watch “Bleak House” on multiple platforms. We watched it on Amazon… As for the ads, there’s a thirty second one before every episode and that’s all, so you don’t have to pay the $2.99 to get rid of them. I can afford $2.99, but I find it an insult. Just give me one overall price, stop pecking me to death like an overaggressive duck. If you want to see where you can see “Bleak House,” just go to justwatch.com  Ah, here’s the page:

https://www.justwatch.com/us/search?q=bleak%20house%202005

So this 2005 series is not the only edition of “Bleak House,” but this is the one that was rated so well on Metacritic. It stars Gillian Anderson.

Now as I said previously, science fiction is not my thing, so I never watched “The X-Files,” I wasn’t really familiar with Anderson’s work. But she was so good in “The Fall,” I became a fan. And you should watch “The Fall”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_(TV_series) 

And Anderson is great in “Bleak House,” but she’s far from the only draw. It’s a cornucopia of great U.K. actors. You’ve seen Anna Maxwell Martin in so many productions…you may not recognize the name, but you’ll know her instantly by her face. Charles Dance as Mr. Tulkinghorn is an intense villain, without becoming two-dimensional. It even features a young Carey Mulligan. This is not an American series with stars showing off, oftentimes sans acting skills. This is a primer in great acting.

Anyway, the plot is…

There’s a legal case regarding a will that’s been going on for years, but everybody whose put their faith in a payout has had their life ruined by this focus.

And then there’s the heritage of Anna Maxwell Martin’s Esther Summerson.

But, there is tons of plot, tons of twists and turns. You see a huge issue that would be resolved in the very last episode in an American series and then you’re stunned when the truth comes out much earlier…where is the story going to go?

Meanwhile, it’s all set in mid-century England, the 1800s, and you’ve got vast income inequality, the idle rich living in luxury and the poor living in squalor. Actually, it’s not that different from today, even though we’ve pulled back from the extremes.

So there are issues of money, but also passion and honor and…

Don’t be scared off by it being Dickens… You’d be interested no matter who wrote it

The avarice.  Everybody’s trying to get ahead, whether it be the drunken landlord Krook or the invalid carried by chair Smallweed.

Do you let young lovers live their impassioned lives impulsively or does the elder try to slow their lives down, having learned how life plays out over his years.

And can you restrict your passion, your love for another, even if society frowns on it?

And then there’s the power wielded over those who have no standing.

The surprises are plentiful.

My only regret is one of my favorite actors, John Lynch…

Well, I don’t want to give anything away, I’ll just say I wish he was featured more in the series.

You may not be hooked immediately, but within two or three episodes you will be, you’ll be drawn to the TV because you want to know what happens. And you’ll be surprised by what happens.

And on one hand you’ll be taken away from today…but so many of the same issues are in play in the twenty first century.

“Bleak House” was written as a twenty episode serial over a year and a half. Which means Dickens had to keep the reader interested, on the edge of their seat, wanting to know what happened.

Don’t let a knee-jerk aversion to Dickens prevent you from watching this series. It’s a BBC tour-de-force.

And much better than all the vaunted American productions of 2025.