A Christmas Carol: FX's A Christmas Carol, episodes 1-3
December 19, 2019 5:11 PM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe
A television adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic Christmas tale of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge. (FX Channel/BBC production)
TV Guide - Guy Pearce Is an Exceptionally Evil Scrooge in Trailer for FX's Gritty A Christmas Carol
Collider - FX’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ Review: Hard-Hearted, Black as Coal, and Cold as Ice
Variety review: "Ebenezer Scrooge is a character whose iconic status is earned through his simplicity. Through endless retellings of Dickens’s novella “A Christmas Carol,” his nature and his story have the starchy plainness not to warp: Scrooge loves money over people, and has entirely lost his way as regards human relationships. Give or take a lost love, and that’s more or less it — a fellow whose cruelty lacks much adornment, all the better to bring him relatively quickly to a life-changing epiphany and 180-degree personality flip. Which makes it all the more confusing that FX’s new “Christmas Carol” adaptation, written by Steven Knight (of TV’s “Peaky Blinders” and “Taboo”) digs for the impish, perverse antihero within a character whose needs and wants could, previously, have been written on a matchstick. As played by Guy Pearce, Scrooge is less misanthrope than outright sociopath, using his material advantage over others to, say, ruin their Christmas for the fun of it, or to demand obscene favors in return for financial help he can easily afford just to see how desperate people really are."
TV Guide - Guy Pearce Is an Exceptionally Evil Scrooge in Trailer for FX's Gritty A Christmas Carol
Collider - FX’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ Review: Hard-Hearted, Black as Coal, and Cold as Ice
Variety review: "Ebenezer Scrooge is a character whose iconic status is earned through his simplicity. Through endless retellings of Dickens’s novella “A Christmas Carol,” his nature and his story have the starchy plainness not to warp: Scrooge loves money over people, and has entirely lost his way as regards human relationships. Give or take a lost love, and that’s more or less it — a fellow whose cruelty lacks much adornment, all the better to bring him relatively quickly to a life-changing epiphany and 180-degree personality flip. Which makes it all the more confusing that FX’s new “Christmas Carol” adaptation, written by Steven Knight (of TV’s “Peaky Blinders” and “Taboo”) digs for the impish, perverse antihero within a character whose needs and wants could, previously, have been written on a matchstick. As played by Guy Pearce, Scrooge is less misanthrope than outright sociopath, using his material advantage over others to, say, ruin their Christmas for the fun of it, or to demand obscene favors in return for financial help he can easily afford just to see how desperate people really are."
I'm watching it now and it's a mixed bag. There are some points that work like Scrooge's hatred of christmas being about the hypocrisy of it and tying Marley's redemption to Scrooge's. But making Scrooge a victim of sexual abuse saved by his sister at gun point? Yeah that was a bridge too far for me.
it is fascinating for its wtfuckery.
posted by miss-lapin at 10:47 AM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
it is fascinating for its wtfuckery.
posted by miss-lapin at 10:47 AM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
I dunno what episode it was - but Scrooge forcing the poor lady to undress while crying made me nope right out. No redemption for you. Plus they showed us her naked backside - while she's crying. So gross.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 12:56 PM on December 20, 2019
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 12:56 PM on December 20, 2019
Bah, humbug!!
There's only one excellent Christmas Carol adaptation and that's The Muppet Christmas Carol!!
posted by Pendragon at 1:12 PM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
There's only one excellent Christmas Carol adaptation and that's The Muppet Christmas Carol!!
posted by Pendragon at 1:12 PM on December 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yeah the stripping scene is REALLY difficult. But it's made into a key plot point so as not to be labeled gratuitous. It also ties into his own history of sexual violence.
Honestly that whole grafting of sexual violence into it didn't work for me. Scrooge is more horrifying and realistic if he didn't come from a tortured background. There are certainly a lot of entitled rich people without empathy. Not everyone needs to be victimized to be cruel.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:53 PM on December 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
Honestly that whole grafting of sexual violence into it didn't work for me. Scrooge is more horrifying and realistic if he didn't come from a tortured background. There are certainly a lot of entitled rich people without empathy. Not everyone needs to be victimized to be cruel.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:53 PM on December 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
I’m a Guy Pearce completist, so I gave this a go. Nuh-uh. I rather like the idea of Bob Cratchit having some bite to him, and overtly chafing under Scrooge’s employ, but being very cognizant of exactly, as he says, “the narrowness of my situation.” But the idea that Scrooge became Scrooge not because of his willingness to embrace vulture capitalism but because he was traumatized by childhood sexual abuse, which made him an abuser in turn, was a copout disguised as “relevance.”
posted by holborne at 7:49 PM on December 23, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by holborne at 7:49 PM on December 23, 2019 [2 favorites]
This was so bizarre. We started watching it last night, but the level of grittiness was preposterous instead of menacing. The initial dialogue between Scrooge and Cratchit seemed like an improv exercise between two actors--talented and thoughtful actors, but blue-skying nonetheless. And it surely doesn't sit right with me to cast the first black Mrs. Cratchit and then subject her to sexualized abuse.
Company came over midway through, so I didn't get a good look at what happened to Scrooge in his childhood, but by the time they went home, I was done with the thing. They sold me the seat, but I did not need the edge.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:34 PM on December 25, 2019
Company came over midway through, so I didn't get a good look at what happened to Scrooge in his childhood, but by the time they went home, I was done with the thing. They sold me the seat, but I did not need the edge.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:34 PM on December 25, 2019
I really really really like this, don't know if that's a Brit thing. (Haven't looked at your locations!)
posted by lokta at 4:29 PM on December 25, 2019
posted by lokta at 4:29 PM on December 25, 2019
Finished watching this morning. Oof.
And it surely doesn't sit right with me to cast the first black Mrs. Cratchit and then subject her to sexualized abuse.
Yeah, and the implication that she wished the spirits upon Scrooge was ... I don't know if they were trying for a 'isn't she a badass' or what but it seemed more 'magical negro' trope to me.
posted by oh yeah! at 12:47 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
And it surely doesn't sit right with me to cast the first black Mrs. Cratchit and then subject her to sexualized abuse.
Yeah, and the implication that she wished the spirits upon Scrooge was ... I don't know if they were trying for a 'isn't she a badass' or what but it seemed more 'magical negro' trope to me.
posted by oh yeah! at 12:47 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
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Anyway, looking forward to getting to Andy Serkis' Ghost of Christmas Past, eventually.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:24 PM on December 19, 2019 [2 favorites]