The Grand (1997)
Review by Igraine
Film:
DVD:

Written by Russell T. Davies
Directed by Indra Bhose, Ken Horn, and Douglas Mackinnon
Starring Julia St. John, Mark McGann, Michael Siberry, Louie Ramsay, Stephen Moyer, and Tim Healy

Features:

• Slide Show
  
• Cast Filmography
  
• Web Links
  

Set in Manchester, England, The Grand is the epic tale of a magnificent hotel. The time period is the 1920s and John and Sarah Bannerman (Siberry and St. John) have gone through great expense and difficulty to re-open the hotel. John's scandalous brother, Marcus (McGann) steps in at the last minute to save the hotel from financial ruin. His only price is that he and John have a 49% vote and John's wife (whom Marcus covets) has a 2% vote. This, obviously, causes her to have to side with one or the other on every major decision. Meanwhile, the chambermaids, led by a feisty Kate Morris (Callard) and Monica Jones (Danson) daydream of living the high life at the hotel. Monica seeks out a former and aged Madame, Esme Harkness (Hampshire), to help her in her quest to climb the ladder of societal rank. The struggles they all face lead to manslaughter, infidelity, and mystery.

This first series consists of eight episodes that take you from opening day to what could be their ruin and ultimately their closing. It discloses the inner workings of this hotel through the family that runs the hotel to the live-in servants that keep day to day expectations met. The writing for the series seemed like it was just enough to get the story told without losing the audience over a long period of time. The acting was also pretty bland from all involved. Even the production values seemed to fall into that same grey area of blah. In short, nothing about this series makes it stand out as a piece of cinematic excellence...which is a shame, because it could have been.

Special features are typical from a series found on public television: a boring slideshow, a cast filmography, and then web links that you have to write down the website and go look it up on the web--no DVD-ROM content here. It would have been nice to have heard from Russell T. Davies (who also created Queer as Folk), if not in a commentary then at least in a featurette of some sort. Or perhaps a featurette that went over the production design and costumes that would help us understand their choices in those departments. But alas, it's just basically a real disappointment.

So, when you see it sitting on the shelf at your local video store, just let it stay there. You'll be thankful you did.