Reviews

The first recommendation I get is undoubtedly Pride and Prejudice(Collin Firth version),when talking about British TV series, the second probably would be Brideshead Revisited or Fawlty Towers, yet no one recommends The Duchess of Duke Street to me before. It is by sheer luck that I come across this series-and what enjoyment it gives me! how many times it sets me think like I have never thought before! and what a treasure it is!

The first two or three episodes are quite plain, and indeed, dull, I would say; as the story unfolds itself, however, I become quite captivated-I never knew before any female characters from any TV series can be such as Louisa Trotter: she's pretty(quite common among all TV series), but damn headstrong as a bull, and she says 'bloody' as often as a man does, never cares very much about deportment and carriage herself;what strikes me as rarer and harder to find among women is her force-she has passion for cooking, and on no occasion allows any one or anything whatsoever to hinder her from realizing her dream of being the best cook in England. Such a woman is uncommon even in today's world. For how many times have we been dragged away from the path to our true dream by this or that seemingly reasonable excuse! How many people have been regretting in their winter season of life-oh, if only I did! In short, this is quite a thought-provoking series, can be even better than Pride and Prejudice and Brideshead Revisited in a way. A pity to be sure, that The Duchess of Duke Street is not well-known now, well, in America at least.

However I am a bit disappointed that in the later parts of the series, too much is focused on Louisa's relationships-I don't like such a good topic to evolve into a kind of romantic soap opera, there's already too many of them stuffed in the American TV markets-the focus of which really disappoints me, since I do consider the middle of the series very promising. Well, that's the only flaw I find with this series, and that's why I give a 9 star instead of a perfect 10.

To start with, this series is undoubtedly a fine series, not a bit like American cheap thrillers; Ian Richardson plays Dr. Bell extremely well, in fact, so well that I think his adaptation of Dr. Bell is much better than his previous adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. Plots are good, characters interesting, setting&costumes acceptable...but the drawback is that this series is too traditional. There's death, love, conflicts, climax and anticlimax, prejudice and misunderstanding, among many other things that are typical of ordinary TV series. The whole series seems like the work of an aspiring writer, promising to be great, but still needs to be polished. To come to the point, as a big fan of Sherlock Holmes stories, I am not in the least interested in how Doyle gains the affections of his fellow female student, or what his school life is like etc. The most things I want to know are METHODS-what exact methods Dr. Bell uses in solving crime mysteries(there's not enough shown in the series)-and which parts of the crime mysteries are later reflected in Doyle's Holmes stories&c, &c. In short, I want the series to be more documentary-like, I don't want it to be an ordinary crime-mystery one.

I swear that the part about Taiwan is Gospel truth. You may understand if you read books such as Cambridge History of China. The untrue part is about the love affair between Kangxi and Suma Lagu. In real history, Suma Lagu was about the same age as Kangxi's Grandma, so it was impossible for Kangxi to fall in love with Suma Lagu. It would be an incest. Another flaw of this TV series is about Xiao Zhuang. 'Xiao Zhuang' was a posthumous name. People gave her that name after she was dead, to show their respects for her. 'Xiao' means filial, 'Zhuang' means imposing, courteous. It was grotesque for Xiao Zhuang to call herself that name when she was still alive. She should just call her self 'I the queen' or something like that. Excluding the above mentioned points, this TV series tells a true life story of Kangxi in the most amusing way possible. It can be treated as a melodrama or historical drama, or whatever you like. I dare say Kang Xi Di Guo is the best TV series PRC has ever produced.