Just a few months ago, I was rather bummed out that I couldn’t watch this awesome miniseries that aired on the Starz network. But looks like I won’t have to wait much longer now that the dvd is going to be released in late November!
The Pillars of the Earth is based on the bestselling Ken Follett novel, and produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free production company. The six-part, eight-hour epic miniseries is set during the bloodiest civil war in England’s history. It promises to be a sensuous, spirited and passionate story is set against a backdrop of war, religious strife and power struggles which tears lives and families apart. In that time, there rises a magnificent Cathedral in Kingsbridge.
Check out the trailer and info about the show in my previous post. The reviews I’ve been reading have been good, with an IMDb user rating of 8.7/10. Well, I have quite a high expectation for this, but I don’t think I’ll be disappointed. Especially when it comes to Rufus Sewell’s performance!
Rufus Sewell brings the perfect amount of passion and vulnerability to Tom Builder. His moments of inspiration are stunning. He was the last person I pictured in the role, but now I can’t think of anyone more suited. – IGN TV review
Rufus Sewell provides the machismo and sexual tension as Tom Builder. Whenever the action starts to lag, Sewell energizes the entire production as the talented mason who must negotiate the politics of the church, the will of the king and the interests of the workers. – Denver Post
Well, this behind-the-scene featurette is wetting my appetite even more!
Has any of you had the privilege of seeing this show? Well, what did you think?
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Haven’t seen it, but very much looking forward to it, especially when I see praise like this (from comments on IMDb):
“Rufus Sewell so far is the best of the actors in the series, and he is very emotional as Tom and exactly how I imagined him from the books. Natalie Woerner, a German actress, really stands out so far as Ellen. She and Sewell have an amazing chemistry together and I completely believe the character’s passionate, but scorned upon relationship.”
“…from what I’m seeing so far it will be a big candidate to pick up a couple of Golden Globes and Emmys in the miniseries category next year.”
“The show’s greatest strength is the actors. You can’t go wrong with Donald Sutherland and Rufus Sewell in a TV series. And Ian McShane is always great, especially when he’s playing a dark character.”
Yes!!
Why am I not surprised… I do hope this series will bring more publicity for Roof. Lucky Natalie Woerner… amazing chemistry, huh, yeah, that’s got to be a tough job to have to pull that off with Rufus 😉
I don’t know… I tried watching a couple episodes but I never really got into it 😦
I’m currently watching it, and I loved the first two episodes, they were very dynamic, quick, eventful, but at the same time intriguing and sexy at moments 🙂 There were even some shocking scenes (a witch peeing on a bishop, a mother bathing her grown up adult son…) but they were part of the story.
The show is lacking the visual style and original beauty of some other popular historical shows like THE TUDORS, SPARTACUS… but it is still quite lovely to look at as well, especially since the sets were done by award winning, Serbian set designer Miljan Kreka Kljakovic 🙂
I loved most of the actors, especially the young ones, and Ian McShane, but I think Hayley Atwell could’ve been replaced by someone more talented and interesting.
Hey thanks for your mini review Dez, are you watching it on Serbian TV there or online? Dynamic, intriguing and sexy… oh my! I haven’t watched Spartacus but yeah, The Tudors are definitely gorgeous to look at. I’m not worried about this one, I mean with Rufus, I might not be paying much attention to the set 😉
No, Serbian TV doesn’t have shows of interest for me 😦 I downloaded it from the Net as usually 🙂
RufRuf is quite weird in this role, he’s good, but I liked him better in TRISTAN AND ISOLDE and some other projects.
YAY! im glad its finally on DVD, Ken Follett is great! if ur a fan of his work, he produced another movie called White Wedding, its on DVD today too, i got my copy at http://www.whiteweddingmovie.com!