Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

robertemerald Dickensian lost points for me because its all centered around the same general set, that is, a few streets of old London town. That was a problem for me. The actors are fabulous and, in small and considered doses, and an intelligent pace, a joy to watch, truly. The script is fine and didn't need to be deliberately a Charles Dickens … what … satire … tribute … soap? Which just brings my current 2017 viewpoint back to this irritating problem. This show just stays home all the time. I found it claustrophobic. I am used to 19th Century movie and television treats such as Sherlock Holmes, Penny Dreadful, Dracula, and such, all of which leap to the country (or at least out of any given neighborhood) from time to time. Although I can only give Dickensian 7 out of 10 myself, I think there will be a big place for this experiment in future revisions of the genre, and this show will be remembered fondly.

studioAT Touted as one of the BBC's gifts to us as viewers over the Christmas 2015 period this ended up being a bit of an expensive flop for them, being axed after one series.It had a lot of potential, but people just didn't get into it. The scheduling didn't help it take on a sort of soap like quality, but the basic fact was people may know the main Dickens characters, but some of the ones that popped up were just too obscure for the average viewer.I applaud the BBC for trying something different, goodness knows they don't do it often, but they really didn't help themselves by moving this show around the schedules so much.

Paul Evans I must admit to being highly sceptical by the whole premise surrounding Dickensian. Having studied several of the great works for English lit the thought of combining characters seemed like a grand scale disaster, but to my utter amazement, it's cohesive, logical and has become utterly addictive viewing. I find the scheduling a little all over the place, it seems to go out at random times, so I enjoy catching up with it at work having lunch.Fantastic production values as one would expect from the BBC, the camera work is slick, the costumes and sets are world class, but it's the scripts and the acting that are making the show for me, am loving Anton Lesser's Fagin, and Ned Dennehy's interesting portrayal of Scrooge. I barely recognised Caroline Quentin.I appreciate the subtle touches of humour too, it could have easily been grim viewing, but far from it. Love it. 8/10

jc-osms The idea of bringing together into one narrative different fictional characters has been done recently and brilliantly in the likes of "Penny Dreadful" but this new BBC series takes it up a few notches more, not only in the number of disparate characters but of course that they are all from the world of Charles Dickens.I must admit I was concerned when I read that the series was devised by the producer of the Beeb's dreadful soap opera "Eastenders" but, five episodes in, these Londoners I can stand. It is slightly confusing to see some resurrected characters walking about like Nancy from "Oliver Twist", Little Nell from "The Old Curiosity Shop" and Miss Haversham from "Great Expectations" and one wonders if they are going to meet the same end as before, also in my reading of the former, I didn't have Nancy pegged as a call-girl as here and attending, shall we say, to Jacob Marley too.The show is set up along the same lines as the channel's previously successful adaptation of "Bleak House", i.e. in thirty minute programmes, usually with a kind of cliff- hanging climax at the end of each episode, which of course ties in well with the weekly publication method that Dickens himself worked to. The main story of the many plot strands appears to be the death of Jacob Marley from "A Christmas Carol", with Inspector Bucket of "Bleak House" on the trail, but a close second appears to be the anticipated jilting of Miss Haversham too.As you'd expect, the production values are high, the settings are superb, interiors and exteriors, the latter especially played out in the winter snow. I'd imagine the eyes of the various agencies for actors in the UK all lit up when they got wind of this production, so many of them are employed here, although not too many big names that I can see, perhaps Stephen Rea in another mannered portrayal of Bucket, Caroline Quentin as the domineering Mrs Bumble and Pauline Collins having fun as that old soak Mrs Gamp being the most identifiable. There's also a smattering of new characters too just to help the plots develop and to date these creations are fitting in seamlessly well.Anyway, I'm thoroughly enjoying it now that I'm familiar with the main characters and can see the plot coming nicely to the boil. I'm just wondering if some of the best known nicer characters like Pip from "Great Expectations", Nicholas Nickleby or David Copperfield might yet show up, but really there's more than enough to be going in with. With another fifteen episodes to go, there's plenty of time for surprises yet.Some might see this interpretation of Dickens as manipulative or even sacrilegious but with modern writers devising authorised use of characters by say Charlotte Bronte and Ian Fleming to give two very different examples, personally I'm finding it fun and rather enjoying it so far.