The good, the bad and the downright bonkers

Promising news from the UK: it seems "Downton Abbey", the drama scripted by Julian Fellowes which apparently is a good old family saga in the "Upstairs Downstairs" style, is doing very well. Hmmm. So themes like family relationships, missing heirs and social tension set in a historical context are popular, are they? "Edgy" and "trendy" dramas not so hot anymore (if they ever were)? Feel silly about axing "Dombey and Son" yet, BBC?

Speaking of family sagas, I've now started watching "North and South" again - not Gaskell's this time, but the TV series made on the basis of John Jakes's American civil war potboilers "North and South" and "Love and War". The problem with the series is that each episode is so long - about 1 hour 30 minutes - and you don't always feel up to spending that much time in the company of the families Main and Hazard. But it is a nostalgic delight for me, because I saw it as a schoolgirl and analysed it at length with one of my best friends. It's nice to see that the things that annoyed us then still annoy me now. Subtle this series is not. The good characters are good, the bad ones are bad, and there's an end to it - no psychology or nuances needed. The whole series starts as it means to go on - we see two little girl playing one sunny day on the Main plantation. One little girl (dark-haired) robs a bird's nest. The other (blonde) urges her to give the bird its egg back. You've guessed it: they are The Good Sister and The Bad Sister of Orry Main, one of the series' heroes. It's a rotten job (in both cases), but someone has to do it. Good Sister grows up to be loyal, loving, kind to slaves etc., Bad Sister grows up to be sly, wanton, war-mongering, greedy and downright murderous. She also grins a lot.

With a setup as schematic as this, you can't really hope for any interesting villains, and so it proves. There are two things that can be said for the two head baddies Elkannah Bent and Justin La Motte: they've got great villain-y names, and they are not a pain to look at (though you tire of Bent's self-satisfied mug ere long). And that's it, really. As a girl, I used to try to feel some sympathy for Justin, mainly because he was saddled with Madeline, Orry's flame, as a wife. I had a strong dislike for Madeline back then, but I realise now that I was a bit too hard on her, and that her hubby is a lost cause villain-wise. Never mind giving your wife enough cause for adultery: Justin gives Madeline enough cause to throw a Roman orgy every other Saturday had she wished it, which of course she doesn't. He beats her. He rapes her. He cheats on her with a slave girl (who is probably none too willing, seeing he is no great friend of slaves). Later on, he kills her trusted woman servant/mother surrogate and drugs Madeline into becoming an obedient wife (actually, that part was rather fun). You really can't blame Madeline for hooking up with Orry - who is of course not only a lay but Her One True Love. Gosh, she is annoying, though. That breathiness. That sick-making goody-goody-ness. During the war, it isn't enough that she helps refugees (mainly black ones, to ensure their deserving status). She has to beggar herself doing so. Yuk.

There is one character who is even more annoying than Madeline, though, and that is Bent. Justin seems low-key and measured in comparison to this supremely irritating loony. You've got to hand it to John Jakes, though: if he wanted to create a villain whom nobody, not even the most hardened villain groupie, could like, he pulled it off. I and my friend were very scathing about Bent's over-the-topness even as schoolchildren, from the all-too-obvious name of his all-too-obviously vicious black horse at West Point to the scene where he runs into a burning building full of gunpowder bellowing "I'm gonna save my empire". Kinda stupid, wouldn't you say?

Enough criticism though: within its limits, "North and South" is great entertainment, and it does two things surprisingly well. One, it manages to give a balanced account about the North-South conflict. Not all abolitionists are wonderful people, for instance: Virgilia, the sister of the series' other hero George Hazard, is fanatically anti-South on account of the slave issue, and at one time joins John Brown, he whose body lies a'mouldering in the grave. Not a very nice character, it turns out. On the other hand, slavery is not in any way excused. Sadistic slave owners and ditto slave overseers are not the only problem either: as soon as Lincoln proclaims the abolition of slavery during the war, the ex-slaves of the oh-so-decent Main family leave, just like everywhere else. You don't say no to freedom, however nice your former owners may be. At the same time, we are given to understand that the war wasn't just about slavery: other issues were at stake, such as the wish of the southern states to be independent of the North. You get the distinct feeling that much more could have been done on both sides to promote unity and good will.

Two, the friendship between the two heroes Orry and George is really touching. I didn't care about this as a girl. Friendship was boring (in TV dramas, that is, though very important in one's own life): what I wanted from a drama was romance. There are romances aplenty in "North and South", but they are not as central to the plot as George's and Orry's friendship. When Orry and George part at one time and look dejectedly at each other, not knowing if they will ever meet again and if so if their friendship can be saved, it is as sad as a love scene: far sadder, in fact, than any of the crises between Orry and the swooning Madeline.