Summer is the season for miniseries, and this year has seen a bumper-crop of bite-sized series for your viewing pleasure. The great thing about mini-series, particularly ones developed for summertime, is that they are guaranteed attention-grabbers.  Gone are the days when summer was nothing more than re-runs and series marathons.  Studios want to keep ratings as high as possible year-round, and thus are willing to pay a pretty penny in production costs and casting to ensure that viewers come home from the beach, or the pool, or the game, (or the library!) early to check out the newest adventures of their favorites characters.

Here at the Free For All, we’ve already discussed two of the best miniseries out there right now, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell on BBC America, and Poldark,  which has been renewed for a second season, much to my father’s delight.  But there are a number of other quality shows that might just tickle your fancy during these increasingly hot summer days, and the best part is that many of them are based on books, which are much easier to take along on your summertime adventures than a TV, and which don’t require an internet connection to enjoy–once you’ve downloaded them, naturally, if that is your preferred method of reading.   So have a look at some mini-series and the books that inspired them, and see what tickles your imagination…

Fear the Walking Dead: This spin-off of the wildly popular show The Walking Dead has been getting a great deal of attention, primarily because AMC has yet to announce an official release date (it’s sometime in August, but, like the zombie-apocalypse itself, we might not know about it until it’s already happening).  What we do know is that this series is set in Los Angeles, and shows us how the world transformed into the dusty, fear-ravaged, hungry zombie-scape that we learned to love from the original show.  Though it features a different cast and a different plotline, this show will bring viewers right up to the point where The Walking Dead begins.  For readers, come in and check out Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel series that inspired the show.

Under the Dome: Now in it’s third season, this summertime series tells and expands Stephen King’s novel of the same name.  Set in the town of Chester’s Mill, this show examines what happens to a seemingly ordinary place when an inexplicable, invisible, and impenetrable force isolates them completely from the outside world.  Though the show’s writers and creators have taken some liberties with the material, overall, King’s work is evident throughout this show; he is one of the executive producers, wrote the season two pilot, and appeared in a brief cameo (you can see it here).  For those who would like a refresher course, the library has copies of Season 1 and Season 2 on DVD.

Wayward Pines: It’s taken a bit of effort for this series to get rolling, but since it began in May, it has captured viewers and reviewers alike–and it’s always delightful to see their shock-fueled, gaping reactions to critical plot twists that readers knew was coming.  Fans of Brett Crouch’s horror/sci-fi trilogy that beings with Pines will know all about the weird little town of Wayward Pines, Idaho, and the people who live there.  But for U.S. Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke, who ends up there alone after a terrible car accident to find two of his partners missing, the mystery has only begun.  Rumors are that this show will be renewed for a second season, which is great news for those of us who know all the creepy revelations yet to come.

The Whispers:  “Who is Drill?” has become a mantra in our household this summer, but you can answer that question right now by checking out Ray Bradbury’s short story “Zero Hour”, which provided the inspiration for this series.  Though The Whispers takes Bradbury’s concept much, much further, it’s impressive to see how well the original story has stood the test of time.  Bradbury’s work frequently featured childhood, and that magical, often terrifying moment when childhood dies.  This story–and this show–perhaps encapsulating that theme the best, emphasizing the dangers that can come from not taking children’s games as seriously as the children do.

Zoo: Though his delivery is a topic of some debate, there is no doubt that James Patterson can come up with a fascinating premise, and this mini-series, based on his 2012 book, co-authored with his frequent collaborator Michael Ledwidge, is one of his most intriguing.  Our erstwhile hero, Jackson Oz, has dedicated his life, and destroyed his professional reputation, by trying to draw attention to the number of mammal attacks–a pattern that points to a concerted effort to wipe out the human species.  This is a series that has received world-wide attention (Australia has fast-tracked each episode, so that it airs a day after the US broadcast), and it will be interesting to see how audiences react to Jackson’s theories and evidence.

In related news: Several of these shows have announced DVD releases of these shows, so you’ll soon be able to borrow them from the library and catch up on anything you might have missed!

Rather than venture out to the movies this week, I thought instead we could take a ‘staycation’, as they are called, and flip on the TV instead to watch what is promising to be a stellar mini-series event: Poldark on Masterpiece Theater.

In my family, historic dramas such as this are measured on the ‘Hornblower Scale’, developed one stultifyingly hot week in the summer when everyone was too sweaty and tired to argue with me when I said we should all go sit in the cool basement and watch the Horatio Hornblower mini-series (which, naturally, I took out from the library).  My parents, who, up until then, supported my love of costume dramas, but didn’t necessarily enjoy them, were shocked to realize how much this series not only caught their interest, but kept it through every battle, every duel, and every cry of “black, bloody mutiny!”.  To this day, all period pieces are measured against Hornblower, and it is because Poldark rated so high on that scale that I bore you now with this tale.

After watching the first episode last Sunday, my father declared that this new adaptation, starring Irishman Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson (who appeared in the stellar series Death Comes to Pemberley), is “like Hornblower…with horses”.  Essentially, though this series takes place on land, and thus features neither warships nor fears of mutiny, the characters are exceptionally compelling, the drama is relatively fast-paced and engaging, and the end of each episode leaves you hungry for a little more.

Longtime fans of British drama may remember the first Poldark adaptation, which first aired on the BBC in the in 1975, starred Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees as Ross Poldark and Demelza (compare their photos at left to the modern adaptation above…the tradition is similar, but there is no doubt in my mind that that hair has more 1970’s than 1780 in it).  The series was wildly successful, making stars out of its lead actors, and earning some 14 million viewers a week; some pastors were even rumored to have canceled Sunday services so as not to clash with the airing of the episode, in those dark days before DVRs and the internet.  Considering the success of the original series, it’s understandable why it took so long to remake Poldark, but, thus far, the results seem quite promising.

Both the 1970’s and the 2015 miniseries take their inspiration from Winston Graham’s Poldark novels, which begin with the return of Ross Poldark to his native Cornwall in 1783.  Ross was a soldier in the British Army during the American Revolution, and considered dead by many at home–including his beloved Elizabeth, whom he had expected to marry upon his return.  Instead, Ross finds his estate in utter disrepair, his fortunes depleted, and Elizabeth engaged to Ross’ wealthy cousin.  Furious, but undaunted, he focuses on restoring his name and his fortunes alone, and though he marries and has children, a part of his heart always belongs to Elizabeth.  Their tortured love affair is at the heart of many books in this series.

Like C.S. Forester, author of the Horatio Hornblower series (which is told out of chronological order, so start with Mr. Midshipman Hornblower), Winston Graham lived during the Second World War, writing at a time when the present seemed horribly dark, frightening, and alien.  Both authors attempted in their books to re-create a lost world and a time when human beings were…human; flawed and passionate and courageous in a way that they both missed terribly.  Forester had attended the Royal Naval College, and thus his hero was sent to sea.  Graham lived in Cornwall for some thirty years, and thus, Ross Poldark and his family inhabit that same area, and make it their own.  Both series stand the test of time, grabbing readers attention and forcing their heroes and heroines to confront tests, trials, heartbreak, and danger, without providing easy answers, and letting them make mistakes in a way that isn’t common in contemporary literature.

Though Forester stopped publishing books about Hornblower in 1967 (with The Last Encounter), Graham continued publishing stories about the Poldarks up until 2002, finishing the twelve-book series with Bella Poldark, a tale of Ross and Demelza’s headstrong younger daughter, set in 1820.  Along the way, he tackled some of the most noteworthy events in European history, including the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the epic Battle of Waterloo, which has a tragic effect on the Poldark family.  Each novel is stirring, and makes for fantastic summer reading, so come by and take Ross Poldark (and Horatio Hornblower) with you on your next getaway–I promise they will make your journey that much more memorable!