|
|
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Good Drama but influenced by hindsight fed anti-Scott bias, 14 Feb 2005
Having watched this series 20 years ago, I tracked it down via Amazon and was delighted when I found it, and, in comparison with 2001's 'Shackleton,' it has aged quite well, apart from the soundtrack, which does sound dated.I dare say that anyone buying this DVD will already know a fair bit of Antarctic Exploration History, and will thus be able overlook some of the inventions of the script. There are some excellent performances here, from the lead characters of Martin Shaw as Scott and Sverre Anker Ousdal as Amundsen, to Richard Morant as Captain Oates and a splendidly embittered performance from Bill Nighy as Cecil Meares. There's also an appearance from a youthful Hugh Grant as Apsley Cherry-Garrard. The scenery is magnificent, and the cast convey at least something of an idea of how hard life was for early polar explorers. However, like 'Shackleton,' there is a little too much build up and more important events hardly touched on - Lashly, Crean and Evans' hazardous return to base, (with Crean's heroic 30 mile solo trek to Hut Point) is probably worth a film of its own It is a pity that this otherwise excellent drama, and the final episode in particular, was based upon Roland Huntford's biased 'Scott and Amundsen,' now largely discredited (by Ranulph Fiennes' 'Captain Scott' and Susan Solomon's 'The Coldest March'). As such, the conclusion reflects the inaccurate and scurvy-obsessed theories of a journalist (Huntford) who has never been in such a situation. In fact, neither Scott or Amundsen are portrayed sympathetically here, and one is left feeling that the casual viewer would have gone away with an unfairly negative view of both these heroic men. This DVD set is well packaged but there are no extras. My supposed Region 1 copy played perfectly well on a Region 2 only player for some reason!
|
(5 customer reviews)
See all 5 customer reviews...
(
