Cranford

              After watching Garrow’s Law, I became interested to see what else Andrew Buchan (the man who played William Garrow) was in.  I looked up his other works and put some of them on my movie list.  Then, because they were so far down the list, I forgot all about them.  It wasn’t until I decided to grab something from my list and see if it was available at my library that I really payed attention to what I had added.  This is why, when I saw Cranford on my list, I could not remember why it was there.  Then I saw Mr. Buchan’s name in the credits and I remembered exactly why I wanted to explore this miniseries.  How exactly Mr. Buchan was part of it, I did not know, and that is why I had to watch; in order to find out.

                Set in 1840s England, and based off a series of books, Cranford follows the lives of people in a town where the railroad is trying to build.  With some of the residents resistant to change, and others welcoming it, the train creates a divide amongst the townspeople.  That, however, is a side matter through most of the miniseries.  A big side matter, but a side matter none-the-less.  That is because at the start of the series something more scandalous is about to happen.  A new doctor is coming to town, and he is a bachelor!  How that’s scandalous, I’m not fully sure.  I have some ideas, but I don’t know if they are correct.  To be honest, in this town, it does not take much for anything to become a scandal.  There is a group of women who absolutely love to gossip.  Everything and anything is fair game to them, and they have a tendency to turn the smallest thing into something bigger than anything anyone could possibly imagine.  This is why it should not come as a huge surprise that poor Dr. Harrison (Simon Woods) gets trapped in a mess not of his own making because of a true misunderstanding and unnecessary speculation.

                While Dr. Harrison deals with being the new doctor in town and all that unfortunately comes with it, another set of new neighbors moves in.  The father, Captain Brown (Jim Carter), plans on working for the railroad while his daughter, Jessie (Julia Sawalha) cares for her ailing sister.  At first no one expects to become friends with this family because they are for the railroad, but Captain Brown makes sure that they do.  With his charm and persistence, Captain Brown makes sure that his presence and that of his daughters is continuously known.  It does not take long, then, for the other townspeople to find this family hard to resist.  This becomes especially so when the sister Jessie is caring for dies while Captain Brown is out of town.  It is then that this family gets truly adopted and treated as though they have lived in the town their entire lives.          

                The neighbors most specifically involved with the Brown family are two unmarried sisters.  Deborah Jenkyns (Eileen Atkins) is the elder sister, and the one many people in the town look to for advice.  Her younger sister, Matty (Judi Dench), follows pretty much whatever Deborah says, which is why when Matty must eventually rely on her own thoughts, it is very difficult for her.  This is especially true since the Jenkyns house is where all the gossipers stop by and spread their gossip.  This household is also where Mr. Buchan comes in (other than when Dr. Harrison saves his arm.)  Mr. Buchan plays Jem, a local carpenter who is secretly dating the Jenkyns’s maid, Martha (Claudie Blakley).        

                While this miniseries could easily be just about this group of people, not every story line surrounds these characters.  There is an entire group of characters that hardly ever interacts with the others already mentioned.  One of those is a very wealthy woman, Lady Ludlow (Francesca Annis).  She is an extremely old-fashioned woman and very set in her ways.  Most of her time is spent waiting for her son to come home from his fun in Italy and declaring how people of other classes should live their lives.  Both of these things lead to all sorts of fights with her land agent, Edmund Carter (Philip Glenister).  He is always advising Lady Ludlow of the consequences of sending her son more money, and she never listens.  Then there is the argument about Harry (Alex Etel), a boy Mr. Carter has taken under his wing.  Lady Ludlow believes that because of Harry’s social class he should not be educated, something of which Mr. Carter completely disagrees.  The constant arguing between these two about this situation leaves poor Harry stuck in the middle, not sure which way to turn.        

                The storylines I have talked about are only just some of the ones throughout the miniseries.  There are so many more tales of love, death, and a cat eating lace that it is really best to watch the series for yourself.  Full of sadness, joy, and humor, I really was not sure what to make of this miniseries at first.  By the end, I felt I had gone through so much with these characters, and that is because there was so much to go through.  Which is why, despite a pretty satisfying ending, it should not come as a surprise, that there is a part two.