I was interested when the TV series was first made and shown of an afternoon. As Glumpuddle mentions above, the entire series was made to be divided into episodes which worked especially badly in PC and VDT. So when it came out on videotapes, and especially on DVD, I kept thinking something was being left out. You really have to watch the combined PC and VDT DVD to realise that the end of the PC disc includes the beginning of the VDT DVD episodes. I, too, got the feeling that BBC, with an increasingly anti-Christianity bias, only did things on the cheap, with sloppy casting etc. Listening to BBC's Audio tapes and later CD's was much better, and in some ways I prefer these to any of the TV productions. These did come out by 1989 and they covered the whole series, including
Last Battle.
King_Erlian wrote:PC being cut down to just under two 25-minute episodes was practically non-existent, though at least they had a Caspian of the right age. Having an adult Caspian in the Walden film changed the whole story into a Twilight-esque teen thing, which I didn't like.
Watching it on TV with intervals for the many commercials which give us free-to-air TV pads a 25 minute episode into something more like an hour. Unlike yourself, I really disliked that little boy's acting in PC, though he tried well enough. If they had chosen a boy more the same age and height as even the boy who played Edmund in that movie I'd have been happier. After all, both Caspian and Peter were supposed to be the same age, and not a teenaged Peter with a Caspian even younger and smaller than Lucy.
King_Erlian wrote:VDT was four episodes and still a bit rushed, but was better. I liked Eustace, but I liked Will Poulter's Eustace even more as he was very funny.
Yes VDT was a bit better, though the boat they had on the BBC couldn't hold a candle to the Dawn Treader in the Walden film. If you saw it up close, you'd see just how lovingly the details were made on the Walden boat. I'm not sure that Samuel West was any better than Ben Barnes as King Caspian, though I preferred him to the little boy Prince, who so bizaarely turned up at the end of SC. By the way, did you know the hag in the BBC PC was also another role played by Barbara Kellerman? Funnily enough I remember the BBC wanting to pull the series at the end of VDT but reluctantly agreeing to do
Silver Chair as well.
King_Erlian wrote:I didn't see SC until a year or two ago when I got the DVD and thought it was the best of the BBC series. Tom Baker was superb as Puddleglum and I liked the children playing Eustace and Jill. Rilian was good, too.
On DVD it truly is the best of the series. Especially as so far we've had nothing else to compare it with. Even Barbara Kellerman's Lady of the Green Kirtle was better than her earlier performance as Jadis the White Witch. And I agree with you about Rilian, Puddleglum, Eustace and Jill. Likes include the scenes in the Underground Palace, the escape from Underworld and Eustace's little encounter with a dragon on Ettinsmoor.
Dislikes include the LOTGK's turning into such a fake snake it might have come from one of those sorts of stores which sell practical joke equipment, such as balls and chains for bucks' parties. And why oh why didn't they use Samuel West as Caspian at the end of that TV film instead of the boy who played Caspian in PC?