Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Blistering performances.

I had not heard about this series until the film with the same name was screened in 2011 - and that I liked a lot. Now, years later, I took the time and opportunity to watch this that was a kind of basis. Although the series seems slow at times and around 10% of each episode are dedicated to credit titles, the thrill is there, with several distinct performances (particularly Alec Guinness as George Smiley/"Beggarman"), but overall quality and outdated aspect ratio do not enable to enjoy the series in full, and the 2011 film excelled at the cast and screenplay. Luckily, I did not remember well the Russian spy´s name who was hunted, so I could follow the series in full (I am not a man who is eager to compare books and productions, focusing on determining the similarities and mismatches).

I've read the book three times, so when I found the DVD pack at the public library, I just had to try it. I wasn't disappointed, although I wished for a little more inspiration, a bit more risk-taking on the part of the writers and director. The dialogue you read in the book finds its way almost invariably into the film, so there is a certain feeling of deja-vu.Alec Guinness fits the part of Smiley very well, but he makes hardly any impression on me. His performance may be called clinical. Michael Jayston as Guillam is nervy and sometimes angry; he convinces me he is a dedicated agent. Bernard Hepton as the foppish Esterhase has some wonderful scenes. Alexander Knox gives a moving portrayal of Control, a man who has kept on doing his job long after he should have been pensioned off. The best work is done by Michael Aldridge; his Alleline is so pompous and tiresome you wonder why nobody has beaten his head in with a poker.

I have to admit that at first I was a bit disappointed. Old men talking a lot about spying, low budget sets, slow pace, no added drama. I thought it was going to be boring. And perhaps, if I were action minded, it would have been. Instead the series drew me in not by playing my emotional chords, not by special effects and not by adding superfluous problems to the story to give it extra oomph, but by presenting the story, step by step, as the rather cerebral character played by Alec Guinness peels the layers of the onion.So take what I told you as a warning. The series is excellent, but you will have to think about what everybody means when they say something, about why sometimes they just ask a lot of questions without seeming to be interested in the answers, which are not coming anyway and about how the game of cat and mouse is played.Bottom line: great, but slow paced spy thriller, aimed at the intellectual in you. It all involves the hunt for a mole in the highest ranks of MI6 during the Cold War, the villain mastermind being the uncredited Patrick Stewart as Karla, with Alec Guinness being its British opponent. It is rather low budget, and feels like a BBC play. Take your time and enjoy the show.

As in the case of other reviewers, I had seen the original on PBC over thirty years ago and had despaired of seeing the series issued in DVD format in the US. After seeing the film version which was nice but one that pales in light of the original BBC series, I learned the series was available now and my copy arrived last week (along with Smiley's People) and I immediately watched them again to even, if possible, greater delight. As a rare bookseller, I have let valuable books remain uncataloged but this was nourishment that I needed and though I still read several books a week in my old age, this along with the Russian version of War and Peace remind me that one does not have to have lobotomy while viewing nonbook media.Richard Murian