Great miniseries - Page 2

Shaka Zulu was great, it right up there at the top of the list.

Anyone remember these?

'World War III' (1982) with Rock Hudson and David Soul
'The Key to Rebecca' (1985) with David Soul and Cliff Robertson

I remember watching and enjoying these when they originally aired, but I haven't seen them since.

Don't forget about me, motherfuckers.



Given the ratings, we can probably go ahead and chalk East Bound and Down up as a miniseries.

If you're interested in fantasy/horror/sci-fi, I recommend:

Ultraviolet: Excelent take on vampires.
Jekyll: I just can't stop pimping this mini series. It is a great take on the Jekyll and Hyde story.
It: Seriously, who didn't nearly pissed their pants every time that damn clown showed up?

I watched that entire thing as a teenager and remember that it really shits itself to pieces in the final installment in ways that I can't quite remember. Sam Neill was damn good as the head Russian, though.

I heard Eastbound & Down was close to getting a second season. Also, that's not a miniseries. It was designed to tell one story from beginning to end over six episodes, but I don't think it's a miniseries.

3 hours feels a little short to call something a series, to me. But I take your point.

And, hey, fingers crossed on the renewal.

Gotta agree with the fellas who put Generation Kill on this list, its simply the best examination of the Iraq War put on screen, and just unbelievably well made, and its got the most incredible final scene to a series. Its all the more powerful since it strictly adheres to real life events and characters.

And State of Play is aces too, especially since its British, we don't make too many good shows, gotta savour it when it happens.

Never seen Band of Brothers, didn't realize it was held in such high esteem, I'll have to check it out some time.

I really enjoyed Empire Falls on HBO from a few years back, I'm still not sure why it was a miniseries and not a feature, it didn't play so long that it couldn't have been trimmed a bit to movie length. I did not read the book so I can't compare it there, but Ed Harris was great as usual.

Surprised there isn't more love for Lonesome Dove.

Holy fuck fiddling shit, how in the hell did I forget about Shaka Zulu?!?!?

It came out when I was ten years old and quite literally blew my fuckin mind. Shaka's been one of my favourite figures of history ever since.



Oooh Shaka!

I'm also in the middle of I,Claudius at the moment, very stagey and theatrical in style (which is understandable considering the budget and when it was made) so it takes a little bit to get on it's wavelength, but fuck me it's utterly brilliant. Just some of the best British thesps of all time tackling one of the most fascinating stories in one of the most gripping eras in history. Just brilliant.

...and this thread has inspired me to track down State Of Play so thanks for that, but for those espousing it's virtues I reiterate that you guys should track down the House of Cards miniseries trilogy and A Very British Coup as well, because State of Play certainly seems to be cut from their cloth.

I really need to see Band Of Brothers as well.

Holy shit, A Very British Coup and House of Cards both sound amazing, I can't wait to check them out.

Profit was pretty awesome, very original, and ahead of its time.

I just finished a series "Fall of the Eagles" which isn't great, but has Patrick Stewart as Lenin...

I actually think it cannot be tracked down in it's original miniseries form now and is only available as a truncated version edited to feature film length (which would suck), but does anyone around here remember an American presidential thriller miniseries from the eighties starring Harry Hamlin and Linda Kozlowski by the name of Favorite Son??

I remember that being a really good, gripping political pot-boiler (but I was a kid, maybe it was trashy shit).

Gotta disagree; Wincer's work is terrific, and the supporting cast is as sublime as the main actors. And the story can't be beat.

I'll throw some love to John Milius' The Roughriders, which totally bought into the myth but had a fantastic cast, good direction, and a winning script by Milius.

Also, North and South - the British version, not the American. Didn't think I'd like it so much but pretty great stuff.

Because nearly all of the best ones have been mentioned, I'm gonna throw out a guilty pleasure of mine:

THE LOST ROOM

...it has it's problems, but one thing I really loved about it was, unlike most science fiction stories, it establishes the "rules" of their reality and doesn't cheat them.

Gotta side with Subotai on this one. Plus Lonesome Dove has DB Sweeney, top that mofo's!!

Of course, then there are the great trashy miniseries from the 80's, like Lace, starring in-her-prime Phoebe Cates. I watched the shit out of that.

I'm pretty sure I also watched Hollywood Wives, which won't be remembered as Anthony Hopkins' finest hour.

This was the shit I would watch before we had HBO.

Seriously Ed, personally for my money I rate it as one of the best pieces of drama my fair country has ever produced, up there with the very best feature films we've given the world. It's a shame it was a made for TV miniseries as it means not that many people outside of Australia have seen it.

It annoys me too because my American movie loving friends only know Richard Roxburgh from excereable shit like MI2, LXG and fucking Van Helsing, when he is Eric-Bana-in-Chopper good in this miniseries. He was 32 and played a character from his mid thirties all the way to his early fifties with little to no makeup and pulled it off magnificently, to the point that I simply assumed he was in his mid to late forties the first time I saw it. It also features an icnredible performance from the best aussie actor no one outside my country has ever heard of: Tony Martin.

It proved we could do true crime/cop drama as well as anything the US has produced and still keep it uniquely Australian in flavour.

It's fucking heart-breaking it's almost completely unavailable outside it's country of origin.

Exactly, I mean the only thing we've seen out of Australia is Black Balloon. Come on Aus, pick it up now.

(Please note I say Aussie Blue Murder because there is a British crime show also called Blue Murder)

Our friends in the north

Wallander. Solid and contained some of the best work that i've seen from Branagh in quite a while, he elevates the series. I wouldn't blind-buy it but worth keeping an eye out for.

Red Riding. Outstanding. You only have to look at the pedigree of the cast and crew to know your in safe hands.

Came to post State Of Play, glad to see it's already well represented. When's that movie version coming out, anyway?

Also, to add to the talk of the Sharpe tele-movies . . . there is also a very similar boxset available of the Hornblower books in the exact same format. Only 10 movies instead of 15-odd, with Ioan Gruffudd perfectly cast as Horatio Hornblower, Robert Lindsay as Edward Pellow and regular appearances from Jamie Bamber and Phillip Glennister (the original Gene Hunt!). It's rollicking good, innocent family fun with great production values (some dodgy CGI explosions aside). The boy inside me that never grew up highly recommends it.

State of Play: Affleck Edition comes out April 17th.

Oh, and maybe it's because I think of it as a movie rather than a miniseries, but Angels in America is my contender for Best Miniseries of All Time. Even though I previously championed From the Earth to the Moon.

This one. Fantastic six part one off that more or less continues the story of Jekyll and Hyde instead of reinvent it or some such. Great central performance from James Nesbitt and a fucking cracking script from Steve Moffat, one of the best writers currently working for T.V.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po33ggf23qU

von Triers The Kingdom. Not the american version, but the original, good one.

Ugh. I really love Jekyll, but if that commercial had been my first exposure to it, then I don't think I would have bothered watching the series.

Don't know if it is classified as a mini-series, it was shown in my part of the world as one 'Brotherhood of the Rose'. A spy thriller with Peter Strauss, David Morse, Robert Mitchum and Connie Selleca based on a book by David Morrell (the guy who wrote First Blood).

As a Brit, and long time telly viewer...I'll put in a vote for the original TV series, "Traffik", which was frankly a bit grittier and more believable than the much feted movie with Michael Douglas a few years back, "G.B.H" which satirised very well the municipal politics of the Thatcher years and features a very funny turn by Robert Lindsay, and "Piece of Cake", simply the best WW2 drama before the coming of "Band of Brothers".

Also, you really have to see the Francis Urqhuart trilogy already mentioned - "House of Cards", "To Play the King" and "The Final Cut" - political machiavellianism in a British context, played for dark laughs and taken to its absolute and absurd logical conclusion. Anchored by a mesmerising performance by Sir Ian Richardson - "You may think that. You may very well think that...But I couldn't possibly comment" - it's absolute genius.

It got one brief mention earlier, but I remember really liking Centennial. Who knew Robert Conrad could actually act?

And not enough can be said about Roots. For those of you who were not yet alive when it aired, you just can't imagine the cultural impact those nights of television had. I can't remember another instance quite like it, with the possible exception of Star Wars in 1977.

Also, there's a fine line to be trod here. British (and, in fact, a lot of non-American) series have generally been run in very short bursts in comparison with American TV, and I think some things are being lumped into the miniseries category that don't belong.

Loved Jekyll by the way. Nesbitt is great, and his Murphy's Law series was great. I think Brit's are too harsh on the quality of their shows - Spooks, Hustle, LoM, Murphy's Law . . . the list goes on. Top quality stuff!

Another plus about Jekyll, by the way . . . how ridiculously hot was Michelle Ryan in that?! Phwoar!