There’s a new version of Great Expectations on PBS, and while I didn’t really expect that much from it (Okay, okay, I’ll say it: “I did not have ‘great expectations’ for it to be particularly good.” Happy now?), I thought I’d check it out anyway. Well, I’m glad I did, because Gillian Anderson (of The X Files-fame {!}) was playing Miss Havisham (!!). She was great, and she looked suitably ghostly and dust-covered, but I kept on expecting Agent Mulder to appear from out of frame and say: “Scully, you’re being mind-controlled by aliens in the government to make you think you’re in a Dickens classic: Snap out of it!” (This must be what it’s like for the Star Trek cast members.)
Oh, but then I started wanting to know more back-story on Miss Havisham! I was hoping we could see her old school chums interviewed and find out what she was really like before she went mad with revenge and burned to death (I guess like on a Dateline-style news magazine report sensationalizing her death), and one of her old friends could say: “Miss Havisham? Oh my goodness! Well, before the old jilteroonie, she was a wild one: a regular party girl! We used to call her ‘Old Lavish-‘em and Ravish-‘em Havisham!’ When her fiancé found out, he took a powder but quick!” (<I think that’s how they used to talk in Victorian times, right?)
