I've been watching the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency television show on DVD.I'm not usually a huge fan of adaptations1, but I quite like this series. While I'm sure that it's not 100% true to the books (I don't remember the character of BK from the books, for example), it is close. And more importantly, it has the same spirit as the novels. Jill Scott is wonderful as Precious Ramotswe. For some reason I always imagined Precious as older than Scott seems to be on screen, but I think that's my error. Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose) and JLB Matekoni (Lucian Msamati) are also perfectly cast.
In the Poison episode, Precious says, "You know, when I see those children together, I can hardly believe there's anything wrong in the world." Watching the show (and reading the books) gives one a bit of that same feeling. They are feel-good in the best sense of the phrase. They make one feel that there is hope for the world, that one can make the world a better place by being a good person, forgiving others, giving to those less fortunate, and sticking up what's right.
Apparently the series was canceled due to poor ratings. How disappointing. I guess I'll just have to pull out the books again.
- There are a few adaptations that I like better than the original (Bridget Jones's Diary comes to mind), but my track record with others is so bad that I usually avoid any and all adaptations like the plague. Austen is an exception, though. My tolerance for Austen remakes is quite high... though not high enough to allow for such atrocities as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
My mom has read and enjoyed this series! I will have to see if I can find the DVD's for her. :) Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome!
ReplyDeleteI'm actually watching the DVDs I gave my mom for Christmas. ;)
Great series! We hadn't read the books, but rented the DVDs through Netflix and really enjoyed them. I vaguely recall hearing that BK was not in the books.
ReplyDeleteI was here ogling your fabulous bookshelves in the post above, and then I saw this! I absolutely love this show! I caught it on DVD, and had to make myself stop watching so that I could catch up on the books and not be spoiled. (I'm still not sure if that was the right decision, since I seem to have enjoyed the show more... *g*)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Jill Scott is so amazing in this, as is Anika Noni Rose. It really is a shame it got canceled.
I quite liked this adaptation, and I htink it has helped my reading of the later books because now I have a clearer idea of how Botswana looks.
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