“Long Song” mingles classy drama and soapy bits
As “The Long Song” begins Sunday (Jan. 31), we’re clearly in a distant time and place.
This is Jamaica, early in the 1800s. It has blue sky, sprawling vistas … and deep, wrenching pain. Caroline Mortimer (Hayley Atwell, shown here with Tamara Lawrance)– who owns the plantation with her brother – mostly stays in the mansion while her sadistic overseer drives the slaves.
Then come all the events – love, lust, rape, revolt, betrayal – that we might find in a Harlequin novel or in a quality production. By the end of the three-week mini-series (9 p.m. Sundays on PBS), we’re left with the same question raised by Netflix’s recent “Bridgerton”mini-series: Where is the line that somehow separates tawdry soap opera from classy, period-piece drama? Read more…