The Onedin Line

1971

Seasons & Episodes

  • 8
  • 7
  • 6
  • 5
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
7.6| NA| en| More Info
Released: 15 October 1971 Ended
Producted By:
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

The Onedin Line is a BBC television drama series which ran from 1971 to 1980. The series was created by Cyril Abraham. The series is set in Liverpool from 1860 to 1886 and deals with the rise of a shipping line, the Onedin Line, named after its owner James Onedin. Around this central theme are the lives of his family, most notably his brother and partner, shop owner Robert, and his sister Elizabeth, giving insight into the lifestyle and customs at the time, not only at sea, but also ashore. The series also illustrates some of the changes in business and shipping, such as from wooden to steel ships and from sailing ships to steam ships. It shows the role that ships played in affairs like international politics, uprisings and the slave trade.

Genre

Drama

Watch Online

The Onedin Line (1971) is currently not available on any services.

Director

Production Companies

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

All Prime Video Movies and TV Shows. Cancel anytime.
Watch Now
The Onedin Line Videos and Images

The Onedin Line Audience Reviews

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!
Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
yonanimal One of my all time favorites. This and Tenko are must see T.V. And should be watched in a great big gulp. Entire cast of both shows are brilliant as is writing.
brtor222 I have finally been able (thanks to a generous poster on YouTube) to watch all 91 episodes of this series, having given up waiting for them all to be released on DVD in Region1. I know that a company called BFS Video released the first 8 episodes on DVD, but that was it. I emailed them to ask why they didn't release the rest, but did not get a reply.I vaguely recall seeing a few episodes of this series on TV in the 1970's as a kid. I don't know if it was on PBS at the time, because I think there were commercials cut into the programs.But at long last to be able to see every episode has been a treat. I found the earlier seasons the best and more interesting, but as it wore on to the later seasons, the flaws began to appear. Certain characters (who either got tired of their roles) were written out (or killed off) from the series too hastily and never appeared again. That is the writers fault and leaves unfortunate gap explanations. But the attention to detail in terms of production design, costumes, and the ship scenes are standard quality for BBC programs during this period. As usual with these British productions during the 70's, they interweave (through editing) studio set videotaped scenes with outdoor filmed sequences, which is a bit annoying at times. Some gaffes here and there with continuity in terms of the characters clothing not matching in some of these spliced-together scenes.Kudos go to Peter Gilmore who appears in all 91 programs and has to carry the whole series. He did an excellent job. Also to Anne Stallybrass, Howard Lang, Jessica Benton and Mary Webster. The Onedin offspring were not great actors, and I don't recognize them having appeared in subsequent BBC productions.91 episodes is quite long and probably would never happen today. I used to think the original Upstairs,Downstairs was quite long at 63 parts or Poldark, until this one. I recommend this series highly especially as I said, the earlier seasons.
tulip33 I just discovered The Onedin Line,I ordered both DVD sets.I was totally hooked through each episode.The casting was perfect,and the acting was great.When I got to last episode I wanted to see more.I was delighted to see it ran for eight season.I was then very let down to find out the rest of the show is not available in the United States.I can only hope the rest of the series will be available in the future.I would definitely purchase the complete series if it were released.I would have rated this series a 10 if the picture quality was improved.The picture quality isn't too bad considering it was made in the early 70's.Anyone who loves British TV,history,and sea/ship dramas will not want to miss this.
D J Rout Grand music, real drama, tall ships and Jessica Benton, how can you go wrong?One way is to cram all the episodes together so that each DVD forms some kind of four hour movie version of 'The Onedin Line'. This means that the writing talent that went into giving us some dramatic flow in an hour show is completely crapped on. At odd points during your viewing, provided you've got four hours spare to do that, you'll suddenly get a bit of the Adagio from 'Spartacus' dropped on you like a piece of musical jetsam. And with only your memory to guide you as to where each episode ends, you end up with a very up and down experience and not what TV drama is all about.I for one would've been keen to see the names of the actors in each episode, too, as I'm sure they would be keen for me to know who they were. Alas, even that is lost to us in some harebrained attempt to turn this magnificent production into something even David Lean could find a trifle lengthy and vicissitudes.We can only hope the BBC doesn't try this again with the second series.