Thursday 5 February 2015

Grantchester vs. Grantchester

One of the ladies at the WTM recently recommended The Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death: The Grantchester Mysteries to us and I pounced on it. I adore cozies and one set in Cambridge in the 1950s, couldn't be more perfect. Add to that the fact that they have just started showing the tv show based on the books here in Sweden and I can't help but do a Grantchester vs. Grantchester. How close does the tv show come to the books? I have so far only read the first short story and watched the first episode so my thoughts are on those two.

First off...the Amanda chick...who is she and why the bleepedy bleep should I care??!!??!!

I loved the relationship between Chambers and Keating in both the book and the tv series. At first I was annoyed that they weren't friends at the start of the show like they are in the book, but the more I think about it the better I think it works for tv that they aren't friends. There were to many already established relationships with him, it was probably good to have a new one to balance it all up. It is always nice to see friendships between men on tv. What I especially liked about this one is that it is a friendship between relative equals. They need each other without really needing each other if this makes sense.

One thing that is always difficult with tv shows is to show the inner lives of the characters, which is probably why most of us say we prefer the books (my one BIG exception to this is Outlander but that is a post for another day). Our inner lives are so much richer than what we verbalize and what we show. One of the things I really enjoyed in the book, but that didn't come out in the episode was Chambers struggle with being everything to everyone. He felt that he wasn't taking care of his parishioners as he should. As a teacher this is a struggle I can relate to (and I do not go and poke my nose into crimes :) ). This is hard to show on the screen, although I think they did sort of a credible attempt at showing the difficulties in balancing when they showed him trying to write his sermon. But it was still something I found lacking.


Another thing that I thought was missing from the tv series was the growing relationship between Chambers and Mrs. Staunton. Again this is probably hard to show as much of it goes on in Chambers head but still...I really missed it. I do think this is the reason why the producers chucked in Amanda, they felt that the show lacked the romantic tension they thought the handsome lead deserved.

Despite my problems I will continue both watching and reading about Sidney Chambers and the mysteries he uncovers.





Copyright ©2015 Zee from A Tea Stained Page. This post was originally posted by Zee from A Tea Stained Page. It should not be reproduced without express written permission

1 comment:

  1. I've been watching this series on TV the past few weeks, too. I also like the setting and the costumes and the friendship between the two main characters. I didn't realize Amanda came in out of nowhere. Sigh, it's like no one can let any character go through a year or two without romance.

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