The best show on TV
What’s the best show on TV?
I don’t know, and neither do you, for two simple reasons: We haven’t watched all the shows, and even if we somehow could (an impossibility, given the 500 shows in regular production), you have your tastes and I have mine.
But: What might be the most moving show, the one that most seems to fit the concerns of right now? It might be “Les Miserables,” currently wrapping up a run on PBS.
It’s an outstanding production, one that doesn’t skimp on the horrors of early 19th century France, the Revolution now faded and forgotten, and the commoners filled with despair while that era’s 1% japes at their misery. While I watch “Game of Thrones” for entertainment, I don’t really care who sits on that iron throne — if anyone — but somehow I’m deeply invested in the equally fictional Jean Valjean and his determination to stay a good man in the face of cruel injustice masquerading as what’s good and right.
I haven’t read the novel, and I never may, but the first four episodes of this television adaptation have been absolutely riveting; the final two play out over the next two weeks. If you need to catch up, all the episodes are available here.
May 6th, 2019 at 5:07 am
I read the book when I was just a kid, and though I could follow the characters & action, I suspect there was much that escaped my callow understanding. Nonetheless, I remember I found it incredibly moving.
I should — I really should — watch this, but I was turned completely off when someone in NPR said, “They cut the music out of this version.”
By the way, Claude Lelouche’s 1995 film of the same name is just as fine, in its own way.