GENRE TRENDS | BACK TO CLASSICS
BACK TO CLASSICS | GENRE TRENDS
BACK TO CLASSICS
Got tired from ultra modern series? Not inspired by hi-tech dramas with
weak plots? Never mind, because it’s never too late to turn back to classics!
Or do you still have some doubts? Don’t worry, we’ve already prepared our
series top-chart for you! But before we go straight to it, one ought to imagine
all advantages of watching and reading classics: 1) you can improve your
vocabulary (classic masterpieces have a lot of borrowings from Greek and
Latin and exquisite words); 2) it improves your social skills (the study claims
that classics, in contrast with commercial fiction and even non-fiction,
lead to better social perception and emotional intelligence); 3) it helps to
understand history and culture in context (it will enrich you and certainly
boost your IQ)… We could continue this row of arguments, which everybody
certainly admits, but what do we have in reality?
TOP 10
of classic masterpieces,
which, according to the
survey, people claim to
have read, but haven’t:
In reality, in order to look more intelligent, approximately 60% of people
tend to lie about reading classic novels! Special research team worked with
2,000 members of the British public to show the tactics people use to
seem smarter.
The most popular trick is to pretend you are a fan of classic novels. For
this purpose, 42% of people use film and TV adaptations, or summaries
from the Internet to feign knowledge of the novels. Remarkably, 50% of
adults admit they do nothing but simply display books on their shelves
without even trying to read them.
The most honest members of the surveyed group, 3% even admit they
hide yellow press and tabloids they are reading inside classic books, which
perhaps should make them look more intelligent!
26%
1984
by George Orwell
11%
Lord of the Rings
J R R Tolkein
19%
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
10%
To Kill A Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
18%
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
8%
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
15%
Catcher in the Rye
by J D Salinger
5%
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
12%
A Passage to India
by E M Forster
3%
The Bible
and Homer’s Odyssey
34 | SEASON SCREEN TV REVIEW | ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 2016
We decided to make a top ten of series based upon those good
old-fashioned stories. Sure, there are more at the moment, but we’ve
made a random selection according to the average rating information.
Welcome to our hit-parade of classics’ adaptations!
BATES MOTEL
Our candidate #10, Bates Motel is an American drama-thriller TV
series. The series is actually a prequel to famous film Psycho by a modern
but already classic artist Alfred Hitchcock. Bates Motel depicts the lives of
Norman Bates and his mother Norma prior to the events portrayed in the
film, albeit in a different fictional town.
The series lead actors, Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore, have
received particular praise for their performances throughout the series.
Farmiga even won Saturn Awards for best actress on TV.
Critics’ reviews were quite favorable, though ratings, which are often
inexplicable, showed certainly average results, so the series hardly gathered
3 mln viewers.
Info: Started in 2013; 2 seasons (20 episodes x 42 minutes)
ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND
Miss some weird and funny characters? High time to remember Alice
and The White Rabbit! Here is an American fantasy-drama series that
aired on ABC from October 10, 2013, to April 3, 2014. The series is
based on the Lewis Carroll novels Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and
Through the Looking-Glass, but with a different twist. So, Alice returned
to Victorian London where she was immediately taken for a madwoman
and sent for treatment.
Reviews for the show were quite favorable, but if the first episode
gathered 5.82 mln viewers and had rating 1.7% (18-49), all episodes after
the 4th one hardly gathered 3.7 mln and 0.9%, so you get to choose!
Info: 2013–2014; 1 season (13 episodes x 60 minutes)
ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 2016 | SEASON SCREEN TV REVIEW | 35