Still Your Grandfather's PBS

By James Poniewozik Sunday, Sept. 29, 2002
    • In 1969, when PBS aired the Forsyte Saga — a 26-part Victorian-Edwardian mini-series based on John Galsworthy's novels — it was revolutionary. Years before The Sopranos, it showed Americans that TV could tell stories as novels do. Its success led PBS to create Masterpiece Theatre — it was the soap that launched a thousand bustles. To say that remaking the show now is not quite so daring is kind. To be unkind — and honest — it only bolsters the criticism that PBS these days is redundant and irrelevant.

    PBS argues that its documentary and public-service work is very relevant. And it argues that its tame entertainment programming is valuable because it's free and uncommercial. But tax money aside, nothing is free here — just look at the pledge drives, the corporate crypto ads, and the costume dramas aimed at aging, risk-averse members' fat wallets. PBS has taken a few chances, like the fine edu-reality series Frontier House and the well-meaning if melodramatic Hispanic drama American Family. But you can't remake Forsyte without inviting the question: Thirty-three years later, is PBS still worth it?


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    To be fair, this is not the same old Forsyte — not exactly. It's been pared to eight episodes (Sundays, check local listings), with a faster pace and a foreshortened story. Soames Forsyte (Damian Lewis), the scion of a wealthy, stodgy London family, is ready to settle down. He meets the near penniless Irene (Gina McKee), his temperamental opposite: she loves art, he's a philistine; she is drawn to ideas, he to money. Naturally, she marries him. Soon she's making eyes at Philip Bosinney (Ioan Gruffudd), the brilliant, artistic architect whom Soames hires to build a country house. Their affair sends Soames into an obsessive rage and precipitates family conflicts that span generations. Irene is more than a love object; she is modernity. The Forsytes long for her to perk up their tired blood, but she proves to be too much, and too good, for them.

    Judged on its own merits, not as a justification for public TV, the new Forsyte is a success. Lewis makes Soames understandable, even pitiable, resisting the urge to Snidely-Whiplash it up. And McKee is captivating as the story's enigmatic touchstone, whom every Forsyte irrationally and immediately loves or despises (or both). The production is lush, racy and frank: we don't just hear that Irene "[takes] steps to prevent" having a child with Soames; we see that — in the contraceptive manner of the time — she douches after sex. But the themes (love vs. money, bohemians vs. the Man) probably appeared more vital in 1969; Soames is no less a villain, but Bosinney now seems, unintentionally, a bit of a preening artiste.

    Forsyte should delight the Masterpiece faithful, but that shouldn't be PBS's only ambition. Ironically, PBS is hailing this as the production that brings it into the 21st century. More like the early 20th. As the Victorians taught us, daring is relative, and Forsyte is PBS's attempt to show a little ankle. But the network can only blame itself if it is not around to remake Forsyte again in 2035.