Rating: 
Summary: Charming Piece of Britain Pre-Great War
Review: A delightful series with characters you'll love and care about. The filming is rather grainy and the music can be a tad quirky, but I really enjoyed this when originally shown on PBS and have enjoyed it just as much on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Charming Piece of Britain Pre-Great War
Review: A delightful series with characters you'll love and care about. The filming is rather grainy and the music can be a tad quirky, but I really enjoyed this when originally shown on PBS and have enjoyed it just as much on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best miniseries that has ever been made.
Review: As a young child I watched this miniseries with my mother. We were enchanted by the story and the characters. I must say that I am overjoyed that others have enjoyed the series and novel as much as I have.
Rating: 
Summary: Rather silly
Review: First of all, one should realize this is a British '70s TV series in all that the concept entails. A show populated by stage actors, their style overpowers whatever supposed emotional atmosphere a particular scene is meant to give. Lots of creative directing work, some with handhelds, that doesn't always work (Odd habit of really fast zooms sometimes crops up). The music has not aged well. It sticks out and screams attention to itself, drawing the viewer out of the film. At least the show doesn't switch between film-shot exteriors and video-shot interiors -- the worst cost-cutting measure I've seen.However, the writing itself fascinates. So if one can overcome the other drawbacks, can be an interesting watch. Just be prepared for the above.
Rating:
Summary: Rather silly
Review: First of all, one should realize this is a British '70s TV series in all that the concept entails. A show populated by stage actors, their style overpowers whatever supposed emotional atmosphere a particular scene is meant to give. Lots of creative directing work, some with handhelds, that doesn't always work (Odd habit of really fast zooms sometimes crops up). The music has not aged well. It sticks out and screams attention to itself, drawing the viewer out of the film. At least the show doesn't switch between film-shot exteriors and video-shot interiors -- the worst cost-cutting measure I've seen. However, the writing itself fascinates. So if one can overcome the other drawbacks, can be an interesting watch. Just be prepared for the above.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Flambards is the visually appealing, and compelling drama of a young girl, sent to live with her evil old uncle and cousins William and Mark. In the tradition of "Heidi," Christina soon becomes assimilated into the Flambards way of life, becoming the eventual romantic wishbone between Mark and William. I have never previously viewed Flambards, so I was completely blown away by the spectacular story, and fantastic acting. I LOVED Christina, her romance with William, and felt sad for Violet and the stableman Dick. My only problem with Flambards at all was the SOUNDTRACK. There is some awful 'seventies' style disco music which has people actually singing: "Bom, Bom, Bom, Bom" and whistling cheerily throughout. This was... Well, quite frankly awful, and did not suit such a well-done period piece. Plotwise: I also felt William was a bit too obsessed with planes. Everything was about 'him' and his desire to achieve HIS dream. When it came to Christina and HER interests he scoffed and picked at her love of horses. Christina, of course was VERY tolerant, loving and considerate. I wonder if William would be so tolerant if it was HIS interests were the ones being constantly ridiculed
Overall, a great series the entire family will enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: This is an extrardinary series.
Review: Great Scott [Lahti] has it exactly right. This series settles into one's somatic cells not only because of its actors' winsome performances and the central love relationships, but also because what it has to say about the transition between historical ages and lifestyles (and non-science versus science) gnaws at one's bones. This has much to say to us as we pass through our own fin d'siecle, and it provides entertainment that is mesmerizing. This is an extraordinary series.
Rating:
Summary: TV SERIES OF A LIFETIME!
Review: Have you ever encountered a TV series which, from the first episode on, became an irreplaceable part of your identity, moving you in ways impossible to describe but felt profoundly? FLAMBARDS was that beautiful a series. Set in the years surrounding the First World War, the story depicts how Christina, a young orphan sent to live with her cousins and uncle at a decaying country estate, Flambards, comes of age amid the conflicts, passions, loyalties and tragedies which follow from her new life. Her uncle Russell, wheelchair-bound for life due to a fox-hunting accident, compounds his misfortune through heavy drinking by the fireplace, and takes his sole pleasure in life from the vicarious adventures in the hunting field which his rugged son Mark shares with him. They are callous to their servants, and cannot understand anyone who does not share their absorption in the world of hunting, hounds, and endless leisure. Mark's brother William could not be more different. Gentle, sympathetic to the servants and the plight of their class, and passionately devoted to the design, building and flying of planes, he too is injured while engaging in the one sport he hates - fox-hunting - and must now walk with a limp. Christina, in her late teens like William, prefers his gentle company yet thrills to the excitement of the fox-hunt. And she soon learns that her ample inheritance, due when she is twenty-one, has been earmarked for the restoration of Flambards - and that she is to marry Mark, who, among other brutalities, has provoked the firing of Violet, the kitchen maid, after making her pregnant! The rest of the series portrays the growing attraction of Christina and William, their escape from Flambards into the world of the early aviators, and the disruptions in their new life resulting from the epic slaughter of the First World War. Everything in this series is just right: the casting of Christine McKenna and Alan Parnaby as Christina and William, the stirring footage of restored early airplanes in glorious flight (set to the haunting background music of David Fanshawe, itself worth the eleven-and-a-half hours you'll spend loving this series), the tenderness of the scenes where William and Christina discover their love for each other, the portrayal of a bygone age of English social life help make FLAMBARDS a series with something for everybody. But what lifts this series into the realm of the extraordinary for me is its unaffected embodiment of human goodness and innocence, of nobility and the heroic, and of how these qualities can move us still, in a time when we need them more than ever. I've seen dozens of TV shows since I first caught Episode 6, "Cold Light of Day," on PBS during a collegiate summer vacation almost twenty years ago. None have found their way as close to my heart as FLAMBARDS. I hope you agree. And I wish you the very best. END
Rating: 
Summary: Lucky to have it at all, but the video-transfer is terrible
Review: I am extremely grateful that this wonderful series is even available on DVD. Most unfortunately, the company that created the DVD did a terrible job, and the video quality is just awful; its like they created it from an old VHS tape. Most people won't notice and/or won't care, but those watching on a high-quality monitor will find it sometimes distracting and annoying. Its really a shame. Perhaps sometime in the future we'll have a new hi-def version from the master film negative.
Rating:
Summary: Lucky to have it at all, but the video-transfer is terrible
Review: I am extremely grateful that this wonderful series is even available on DVD. Most unfortunately, the company that created the DVD did a terrible job, and the video quality is just awful; its like they created it from an old VHS tape. Most people won't notice and/or won't care, but those watching on a high-quality monitor will find it sometimes distracting and annoying. Its really a shame. Perhaps sometime in the future we'll have a new hi-def version from the master film negative.
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