h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: 'Going Postal' - the Television Series - A87850542
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

A look at the last to-date live-action Discworld television series inspired by Terry Pratchett.

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"Going Postal was the third and last to date live-action adaptation of a Discworld novel by Sir Terry Pratchett."

Again, I think this would benefit from saying which other live action adaptations there were, and what role Terry Pratchett has in the sentence.

The Plot paragraph is very dense with detail... What is the word "Yet" saying? That the Post Office shouldn't reopen? Is Parole the act of running the Post Office? Who is the enemy?

"Sadly the characters of Mustrum Ridcully and the Patrician are played by different actors (although Charles Dance excels as Vetinari)"

Different actors than in previous adaptations? The sentence also makes it sound like the Patrician and Vetinari are different people...

Hungary is closer to Northern England than Pinewood Studios - I like it

Changes made

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Excellent - the Plot section is much clearer now, thanks, and the other tweaks are good too

Any more comments here, please?

h2g2 Eds

That looks excellent

I love this adaptation. It's the only one I've seen, as I was given the DVD for Christmas a few years ago. (See F19585?thread=496680&skip=5749&show=2 )

Now I want to go and watch the others.

A couple of comments:

>>It was also filmed in Budapest rather than Pinewood Studio, all of which add up to give it a different feel to the previous adaptations. This is exacerbated by the grim Northern England Victorian setting to the story, which is a complete contrast to the Georgian Hogfather and Mediæval The Colour of Magic.<<

This paragraph seems odd, somehow. I don't think "exacerbated" is quite the right word. IMHO this could read "It also reflects the grim..."


>>Naturally there are numerous differences from the novel<<
"deviations", rather than "differences"?

>>in order to make it more suitable.<<

"suitable for TV"?



>>Principally among these is that in the adaptation Lipwig is seen to have caused<<
I puzzled over this for ages till I realised that it needs commas before and after "in the adaptation", or better still, "in this adaptation"

>>rather than the Dearheart's<<
Either " Dearhearts " or " Dearhearts' " would be correct (different parts of speech, but both plausible. But in either case, the Dearhearts should definitely be in the plural.)


I agree that the cast are unbeatable and all of them deserve far more exposure (although perhaps they're getting it in the UK - I'm not quite au fait with that.) Ian Bonar who plays Stan is definitely worth a mention.

Charles Dance is the perfect Vetinari. I can't think of anyone, except perhaps Christopher Lee, who could do it with a better balance of authority and irony.

Thanks for reading through - I've made a few changes, tweaking here and there. I'll see what other readers think about 'exacerbated', though.

Of the cast, Claire Foy seems to be doing well, especially in television period dramas for which she keeps getting nominated for awards. David Suchet has won awards and Richard Coyle still is getting roles, but not in anything I've watched lately.

Charles Dance does indeed do a very good job, I just think it would have tied the adaptations together more if they'd had the same role played by the same actor – whether the actor was Jeremy Irons or Charles Dance is less important, just keep the same actor both times. As Christopher Lee had previously played Death three times, had he played Vetinari too, it would have added a strange dimension to the character.

The actor playing Stanley is mentioned in the cast list, and yes, he plays the part well, but I didn't think he was in the series enough to have his presence dominate.

But yes, if you enjoyed watching this, I would heartily recommend the others in the series.

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