GamerTab That was an excellent one.

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

davdecrane Even at 24 hours or so, this family does not overstay its welcome. Splendidly costumed and intricately plotted characters – for the most part wonderfully portrayed – combine in a number of imbricate tales, all of which, however seemingly episodic, reveal aspects of our main characters' (the Paliser paterfamilias and his wife) personalities. Humane, feminist, open- minded and just – all these define the stiff, awkward, sometimes dour but never pessimistic Plantagenet Paliser, and explain his attraction to us. He indulges his wife, the real axis for much of the story, and it's good he does; she rounds out his truth with an emotional honesty of her own that he opposes at first only to, always, bow to. It is the characters then that grab us in this long miniseries, as they must in any long-form for us to stay engaged. The Palisers may not have the same degree of dramatic ups and downs of I, Claudius and other miniseries greats – but the humanity the eponymous couple demonstrates is just as compelling.

Ephraim Gadsby "The Pallisers" is a visual retelling of six sequential novels of Anthony Trollope dealing with the Palliser clan through a couple of decades in the nineteenth century.The novels have been truncated (for instance, the whole triangle of Mr. Cheeseacre, Mrs. Greenow and Captain Bellfield has been excised from the part covering CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?) but Trollope always was too baggy and needed trimming. And for Trollope fanatics, they do trot Griselda Grantley into the first episode.What remains is so sprawling, Barrington Erle and Dolly Longstaffe (a slight character in the Palliser novels!) are used, individually and in tandem, as a running Greek Chorus through the series. This is a controversial decision, but Moray Watson's Erle is a likable and perhaps absent-minded consummate political insider; while Donald Pickering's Dolly -- acting the lackadaisical, foppish man-about-town -- shows deeper waters running in him than the Dolly from THE WAY WE LIVE NOW. Though this series was made in the days when this kind of show was performed like a videotaped play, crude effects and rear photography do not interfere with the quality of the production. The sets and costumes are gorgeous and all the exterior party scenes look great.What "The Pallisers" lacks in effects, it more than compensates for in the acting department.The show is carried by beautiful Susan Hampshire as Lady Glencora and the sometimes inaudible Philip Latham as Plantagenet Palliser. It's full of solid British actors -- old timers like Roland Culver, Basil Dingham and Roger Livesey, and up-and-comers like Derek Jacobi, Penelope Keith, Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons. Stockpiled with notable British actors in small parts, American viewers will recognize Edward Hardwicke of "Sherlock Holmes" and Peter Sallis of Wallace and Gromit amongst others.Mystery writer John Dickson Carr once had a character ask, "What if Trollope wrote like Dickens?" Well, Dickens was the better word smith, his writing has greater charm, his characters spring more off the page. His stories were better, his various plots dovetailed better than Trollope's do, and when Dickens is truncated the stuff that is excised is often so good it's missed.Yet Trollope's lesser genius seems to adapt better for television. When Dickens is done accurately, his characters are almost too grotesque on the small screen (see the family of Wackford Squeers in the Nigel Havers "Nicholas Nickleby." Trollope's books are packed with pages of yawn-inducing material this is much more dispensable than anything from Dickens. Trollope's many ill-defined, throw-away characters can be thrown away, and those who remain, sometimes more definable by their names than their characters on the page, seem more suitable for television because they're not larger-than-life. An amorphous mass of literature like Trollope's six Palliser novels can be more properly shaped for television installments than Dickens by judicious pruning.There's a lot of nipping and tucking of Trollope in "The Pallisers", and that's a good thing. The individual novels, as dramatized, flow from story to story like a Victorian soap opera as characters age, die, are born, have flings, get married, get elected, and so forth."The Pallisers" is a long-term commitment that may not suit today's shorter attention spans, but it still can be addictive; and DVDs make it a far cry from the days before normal houses had videotape recorders and viewers had to be on the spot every week for 26 weeks to see this solid saga unfold.

Julie-30 this is one of the greatest mini-series ever made.The Pallisers is based on Trollope's six wonderful political novels, and this production is very faithful to the source material. I was a little nervous when I heard that the first eight episodes were being released because I was afraid that they wouldn't be as good as I had remembered. However, I was very pleased to see that this production has aged rather gracefully, unlike so many other productions from the 1970s. It is still a delight to behold.I have waited 17 years to see The Pallisers again and, while owning episodes 1-8 is wonderful, I am champing at the bit to see the rest.

Rosabel This series was a huge undertaking, of a sort that probably would not be attempted today. It was an adaptation of Trollope's "Palliser" novels, and dealt with a great many characters and intertwining plots. The series worked best for viewers who could take an interest in the fictional politics of the time, as Plantagenet Palliser, like most of the men in the story, is a politician and this theme runs throughout the series. However, Susan Hampshire as Lady Glencora, his mismatched wife, provides a romantic strain as well, though she eventually adopts her husbands concerns and interests as her own. The story from time to time veers away from these two main characters, and becomes quite entertaining as it delves into the complicated life of the scheming Lizzy Eustace, and also that of the greenhorn politician from Ireland, Phineas Phinn. His problems with women and his trial for murder (including a cross-examination in Latin!) are among the most interesting and enjoyable passages in the series. This is a thoroughly entertaining series for those who can just relax into the Victorian atmosphere and are not in a hurry to get to the end.