That December Posting Meme - Revenge (the TV Show)

[redfiona99]

From joanne_c's suggestion. Some minor spoilers for the first two seasons herein, and some spoilers for the Count of Monte Cristo.

I first started watching Revenge because the idea of a modernised version of The Count of Monte Cristo intrigued me. Because a lot of modernisations fail because there's things that happened then that can't happen now. This is particularly true of anything that has duels in, duelling having fallen out of fashion.

I was also intrigued by the idea of Edmond being a girl in it, because it's unusual that a female character gets to be all "vengeance yay!". This had the interesting corollary of giving one of the male characters the "have you maybe considered not venging and being happy instead" role which normally goes to a female character (although not in the original book. Bertuccio/Nolan does that too.)

The first episode starts with a wonderful conceit, throwing you straight into the action before going "6 months previously". And the "opening" being at an engagement party was a nice easter egg for the Monte Cristo crowd.

Obviously it's not a direct retelling, nor does it stick to the characters*, but it's still an ambitious and clever way of doing it. Also, anyone that has waded through the parts of the book where it's obvious that Dumas was being paid by the line and had debts to pay off will have no problems with the endless financial subplot in season 2.

*closer, I suspect, than the new Three Musketeers that the BBC has promised me.

Comments

[coneyislandbaby]

I'm not familiar with The Count Of Monte Cristo beyond seeing the Cavaziel (sp?) and Pierce version from a few years ago, but I know the storyline from there, at least the bits that weren't cut out (I keep hearing about a lesbian subtext subplot that I'm sure I would have remembered in the movie and now I wonder if that's part of where Nolan came from, not necessarily character wise). I had no idea it was based on that story, even watching it at first. I watched it for one reason - well, two. First of all, I have been a fan of Connor Paolo (now you know why I asked about Declan) since watching him on Gossip Girl and I was looking forward to seeing what he could do with a different character, and unlike a lot of the fandom I wasn't disappointed. I'm not even - overall - disappointed at what happened to his character. I hate it for a lot of reasons, but it makes narrative sense to me. Plus I like that Connor wasn't actually happy with being you know what (trying to avoid spoilers in case), as I read in an interview with Nick Wechsler. I also found out about Nolan's bisexuality (more on that in reply to that post) and that he was not being treated badly at that point, so I was poised to watch when it came on. I got hooked pretty fast and now even given Declan's fate, I'm very much looking forward to series three.

Though I would've loved more of Travis - and not only because of Owen love, I really liked what Burn Gorman did with him.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

I think that the only reason I remember the Monte Cristo thing is that it was mentioned in the Radio Times's original blurb for the series, I think in attempt to differentiate it from all the other teen US shows.

In a strange sort of way, they're actually doing the lesbian sub-plot with the right character, as in Charlotte and Charlotte's crazy girlfriend whose name I have forgotten again. I want them to raise the offspring together and for them to be very happy. (In the book, Danglar's daughter runs off with her music teacher [who is the same age but just comes from a much poorer family]. It's deeply un-subtexty in the book.)

[coneyislandbaby]

It's not really a teen show, but it does have some elements (I mean, Victoria and the rest of the older generation alone push it out of that area to me).

Oh that is interesting! I would love to see that but I didn't really like her girlfriend.