Entertainment Weekly's Review of Bleak House
Posted at 10:36 AM (PST) on Saturday, January 14, 2006

Bleak House on PBS "Masterpiece Theatre"
By Gillian Flynn

"As haunted Lady Dedlock, Gillian Anderson stares out a rain-splattered window and declares her boredom with such ominousness, it gives one chills. This six-part adaptation of Charles Dickens' tale of an endless lawsuit that ensares families only gets more threatening from there.

With a sharp, elegant script from Andrew Davies,(who also adapted Pride and Predjudice and Vanity Fair for the BBC), Bleak House is a mesmerizing piece of clockwork.

The first episode gracefully introduces dozens of characters, shuttling us from London mansions to cramped hovels, starting us fretting about two young wards whose future is tangled in this sticky bit of law - and making us crave more of gaunt, disturbed Lady Dedlock, with her dangerous link to a dead man.

Dark, textured, and lively - this is how Dickens is done."

Grade A

Thanks, Wendy!