Tom Brown's Schooldays
The trials and traumas of boarding school have always given British  writers rich material--Tom Brown's Schooldays, based on the classic  novel set in the Victorian era, is no exception. In this five-episode  miniseries broadcast onMasterpiece Theatre, young Tom Brown (Anthony  Murphy) leaves home for Rugby, a well-respected school in decline. His  arrival coincides with the appointment of a new headmaster, Dr. Arnold  (Iain Cuthbertson), who aspires to reform the school by stamping out  bullying, drunkenness, and bigotry. Tom's struggle is more personal:  Before his arrival, he offended a wealthy but corrupt man who commissions  his equally dissolute son Gerald (Richard Morant), a senior student at  Rugby, to make Tom's life miserable. Gerald schemes with relish, finally  catching Tom in a trap that threatens to break the forthright boy's  spirit. The story could be pure melodrama were it not for the vivid  details of life in a boarding school. As the plot moves this way and that,  it's always kept real by the hardships of the time (boys sleep five to a  bed, younger boys act as servants to older ones), makingTom Brown's  Schooldaysa keen social critique as well as an engaging story. The  adolescent actors are occasionally a little clumsy, but there are some  inspired performances; Murphy deservedly won an Emmy. Too often a virtuous  hero is a recipe for blandness, but the insightful script makes Tom clever  but fallible. He refuses to mistreat those less privileged out of  conscious choice, not because of some immutable goodness--the character  (and the story) is more compelling as a result.--Bret Fetzer