The Romance Collection: Tom Jones

I recently spent $80 on a 14-DVD set collection of A&E/BBC miniseries (it was totally worth every penny and I would have paid more for it). The DVDs included:

Pride & Prejudice (the single greatest miniseries ever created with the possible exception of Anne of Green Gables)
Victoria & Albert (which I first saw as a sophomore in college when it first came out)
Ivanhoe
Emma
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Lorna Doone
Tom Jones
Jane Eyre


Here comes the secondreview:

Tom Jones
The miniseries is a farce in the typical Henry Fielding way, so if you're into that, you will probably enjoy this miniseries. I, however, while enjoying it, had a hard time getting past a couple of things:

1) Lurkey, Tom's cousin (affectionately nicknamed so because of his habit to lurk in the corners and spy on all the other characters), is boh-ring!! Good thing he's fairly good looking!

2) Fate REALLY had it in for these characters. I mean in a Romeo & Juliet I-am-out-to-get-you-no-matter-what-you-do kind of way. Until the very end, that is. (Not to spoil it for you, but it is a happy ending. Otherwise, I totally would NOT have watched it. )

3) But it almost ISN'T a happy ending and there's only one reason for it. To put it bluntly, TOM JONES IS A WHORE!!!!!! If Tom could keep his pants zipped, EVERYONE would have been saved a lot of heartache and trouble, including Sophie, the love of his life, nearly getting raped twice and married off to different but equally disturbing men (one of those men being Lurkey who is only marrying her to make her miserable and to get back at Tom Jones for being fun and popular. Here's an idea, Lurkey: SMILE once in a while and maybe you'll make friends. Also, stop letting people's favorite pets run away. That may help too.) Course, if Tom could have kept his pants zipped, there wouldn't have been a story, but all things considered, I'm not sure that would have been that bad of a punishment.

Still, for the most part, it was fairly enjoyable. There were some funny lines and amusing parts. Most of the credit, however, goes to Sophie, who's love eventually redeems Tom's whoring, and who's portrayer eventually redeems the story with her delightful acting. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.