From: boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com (Two days and a wake-up...)
Subject: Re: Covington Cross--A Review
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 11:16:16 GMT

In article <lis.714798232@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu>, lis@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Elisabeth Riba) writes...

[Most of negative review deleted]

} Meanwhile, I'm waiting to see the SCA-types SAVAGE this thing. The 14th
} Century just wasn't politically correct, no matter how liberated the
} women here may be.

I dunno. I think maybe you're missing the point. No, the 14th Century wasn't
Politically Correct, and it's that very collision between modern values and
the medieval setting that provides the foundation for the show.

As for historical accuracy, or lack thereof: one could savage the film
EXCALIBUR (gee, I wonder how *that* movie came to mind?) on that basis,
but it's not worth the trouble. The movie is enjoyable despite the
historical inaccuracies (Arthurian legend inherently has this problem
anyway), and there's no reason to believe that COVINGTON CROSS should be
any different.

This is not to say that COVINGTON CROSS doesn't have other flaws that aren't
so easy to dismiss...

Will the show flop?  Undoubtedly.

Do it deserve to flop?  Probably, but no moreso than many shows that manage
to go for years on end.

CC's biggest problem is that it's trying a precarious balancing act. It
works best when it's doing a lighthearted send up of the cliches of the
knights-and-damsels genre, and less so when it's trying to be more serious.
I think it's trying to emulate the lighthearted reverence for the genre
that THE PRINCESS BRIDE had, but without descending into slapstick.

For example, my favorite bit was when the siblings were all sitting
together discussing the situation when the sister asks her brothers,
"What was mother like? I know she was kind and beautiful, but what was
she really like?"  I laughed at this because it's always been a cliche
that the two things that children remember about the mothers they lost
at an early age are that they were kind and beautiful. And I think that
CC was poking at this cliche deliberately, not merely passing it on.

I don't expect that CC will be around very long, and I'll probably watch
it while it's around. Hell, I can always just reuse the tape if I later
decide I don't want to bother with the show.

In article <BtLLIL.DxF@news.udel.edu>, conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes...

} I agree that Nigel Terry has aged nicely.

I third this. The amusing thing is that he looks remarkably like he did
toward the end of EXCALIBUR where he was aged by make-up.

} Did they reunite John Boorman's (from Excalibur) Arthur and Guenevere
} on purpose, or is it is just one of those odd accidents of casting?

Most likely, it was a little bit of both.

I think that Cherie Lunghi has aged well, too. In fact, I'd say she looks
more attractive now than she did 12 years ago.

The only other thing I can recall seeing her in was an early 80s TV movie
of OLIVER TWIST, in which she played Nancy to Tim Curry's Bill Sykes.

-- 

	"She's my radiation baby.
	 She's my teenage fallout girl."

--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, "The Mill", Maynard, MA)

    boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv