Manor House
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Movie Reviews of Manor House
Movie Review: THIS WAS A GOOD SERIES ON TV, BUT ITS NOT WORTH OWNING
Summary: 5 Stars
Look at the subject then read on. It was excellent, but not worth owning like the other PBS reality series besides Frontier House. I hope PBS/England's Channel 4/Wall to Wall TV. Thank you.Movie Review: Come to the insular and class driven world of...
Summary: 4 Stars
I admit, I am a PBS/BBC House series junkie. After Colonial House, this is my 2nd favorite House series so far. The personalities in this series are memorable. The situation and feelings were vivid and I had no troubles understanding why the conflicts came up between the wealthy family and the servants in the Manor House. Like other items in the house series, this is mostly serious business with only a few bits of joy mixed in.
Let Manor House transport you to another time and place for hours and hours. Then be glad you get to take the DVD out and live in the here and now!
Movie Review: 3 1/2 stars, slow going, interesting, tho lacking details
Summary: 3 Stars
I managed to miss much of this program during it's airings on PBS so when I saw it was due out on DVD I decided to get it. I like the concept of taking a modern day family and dropping them into an earlier time setting but this mini-series seemed to me like it lacks something. As in the earlier "1900 House" a target home was selected and restored to period function, here all details of that are left out. I would also have liked seeing/hearing more about the family/servant selection process, you get a little of that in watching the program. I found it interesting to watch but think an hour or so at a time is enough for me. Both "1900 House" and "Manor House" have companion books, you'll want it for this series especially to get a good backgrounding on what is going on.I haven't gotten through it all yet but saw that the Oliff-Cooper family took to their roles a little too well to suit the servants. The servants brought out one of the most glaring problems in the cast selection process, the producers appear to have sometimes done a terrible job in selection. The first scullery maid candidate was an 18 yr. old who had no idea what she was getting into, she took off after just two days. I think the 2nd one did better but it took three tries to get one who could take the job, how could the selection process have been so badly managed? That lowest ranking manservant was a real prize too, seemed to resent the more privileged types way too much. All, or nearly all, of the others did quite well in what I've seen of the story. There's a two part diary included on Disc #1, I watched part one and thought it as interesting, if not more, than the program itself. Apparently they were filming around Sept. 11, 2001 because a couple of the cast made nice references to the tragedy.
The program is interesting to watch but you'll need to get the book, Amazon has it, as a companion guide- it's much better than the book for "1900 House".
The onscreen menu could use a little help I think, or a resonably large TV screen to watch the show on. I've tried it out on a small portable Sony DVD player, the show looks just fine but the menu requires a larger screen to read it well. I could read everything adequately but when changing menu selections the color shift on moving from one choice to another wasn't good enough to tell where you were, that's why you either need a bigger screen or PBS needed to make the menu larger or color changing.
Movie Review: show deserves 4 stars, but DVDs are lacking and expensive
Summary: 3 Stars
This show will enthrall most, its very easy to follow and hooks you in with little interesting tidbits about that Era of England and how people supposedly lived.
However i think the casting was poorly done, by that i mean that alot of the younger people who came in just didnt "get it". They were there to act like they would have done in that time period, not to show what it would be like if you threw modern people into an differnt time period. That aspect will be inevitable, but some of the participants didnt even try and just complained in ways that did not make sense to us (the audience) from what we came to expect from all the rules layed out.
The show is better in the beginning before people start talking back and breaking rules (if they broke rules in a manner that was prevelant to the time period that would be fine, but again they just had modern day complaints that were not valid in that setting)
The DVD's themselves have 2 1hr eps on three discs and one very short behine the scenes featurette. Considering the price, i expected more.
Movie Review: Not very good
Summary: 2 Stars
We saw this at the library and brought it home just the other day. We have previously watched other "House" shows from the library too...Frontier, 1900's, and the WW2 one. I guess my honest opinion, especially after watching Manor House, is that this thing has been done enough already and who wants to keep on watching people complaining about every little thing? It seems these shows focus so much on the people complaining and how they can't get along with each other or can't cope. Obviously, I think the ones in charge must purposely choose people they know won't cope well so as to give "entertainment" value to the program. In each of these shows I feel I could have coped without all the pity parties and feeling sorry for myself and longing for what I can't have for these few months in this "different" life. And I know many people who could have easily breezed through these lifestyles with cheerful hearts and thankfulness for the opportunity to be able to be a part of such a special experience.
As for this Manor House...I myself would have preffered to be one of the servants rather than the "served". Yes, I would rather empty someone's chamber pot than have someone empty mine. I think it would have been fun to be there 3 months to see what it was like to really be a servant. I like to clean, I like to do dishes, I like to cook, and while I admit that it would have been harder work than what I do in my own life, I think I could have done it and been happy all the while.
I thought the show just focused on the negatives, and it gets tiring hearing people complain and listening to them yelling at each other. It all showed the selfishness that is so prevalent in today's youth (and even not so young)due to living in today's self serving society. Obviously, none of those young people could get beyond themselves to say, "What can I do to help you, to make it easier for the whole group?" I don't think any of them have ever really had to work. It was sad to see young men so selfish and lazy. Also I got tired of the bad words and the not-necessary-to-be-spoken-about topics brought up. In our family we don't have TV; we only watch videos and DVD's we try to carefully choose. So we are not watching modern stuff and so we are a bit out of touch with today's low standards in topics of and way of conversation. There were many places where I had to put the mute button on because of tasteless discussion.
I must admit it did have educational value; I know my children and I learned something about the Edwardian life from this program. I just think it could have been way better if there were better chosen people for the task. Really, when you go into a program to be a servant, what do you expect? Are you that dim witted that you don't equate servant with work? I am not saying here that servants should have been treated badly; they are people too that deserve respect and even honor for their service. In my opinion, one who can serve another with love will always be a greater person than one who cannot lower himself to serve.
I must say I wasn't very interested in the Upstairs family. They seemed sort of boring. Maybe too because the show didn't really give a lot of attention to what exactly they were doing all day. It seemed the focus was on the Downstairs folks and their problems. I found the young boy of the family to be very annoying. I was surprised to hear the mother say the Edwardian life was not good for a boy. I couldn't believe it! Here that boy had a chance to be in a beautiful outdoor setting, experience so much of nature, ride horses, etc. That was such a real and good life for a child. The problem wasn't that the Edwardian life wasn't good for him,the problem was that his 21st century life has probably killed the real boy spirit inside him, as you can see in most children of today. Overall, I felt this show didn't give a good view of the family life as say 1900's House or the WW2 House.
Of the servants, I felt the butler, the wife's maid, and the main housekeeper woman were the best, most decent people. I didn't like the personality of the cook, yet I appreciated that he really did work hard to do his best. I felt he really should have had another cook to help him. It seemed he was very overworked and had a lot on his shoulders. It is "easy" to clean, compared to the stress to make sure all the food you prepare for a dinner party is perfect. I was amazed at what he did in that old style kitchen. We were interested to see how birds were brought in and needed plucking, how the dead deer were brought in to be skinned, and to see the boar's head and suckling pig meals. I was surprised to see that Sir John thought the meal of the boar's head was some sort of slam to him. I didn't see that at all and felt he was reading too much into some things. I wonder, like my one daughter said, if any of these people will be embarrassed later when they watch the show? My children were perceptive to the childishness of the attitudes and actions of most of the people here.
In conclusion, I would say this wasn't a total waste of time, but it was quite disappointing. If you have young children, I caution that you preview it first so you know where to skip and or mute certain scenes. But really you aren't going to miss much if you just choose not to watch it at all. I hear there is a book about this project? Perhaps that would be a better option.