Oh, you'd love it. It's an ensemble show set in a small town in Ireland, about two hours south of Dublin (beautiful scenery). An young English priest, Peter Clifford, is transferred to the town (prompting outcry of "This is IRELAND! Why the hell do we need to import priests?!"), and his rather progressive views clash with the conservative nature of his boss, the parish priest. While he quickly comes to love the town, and most residents to love him, he finds that it's definitely a different way of life. The other main character is the publican, Assumpta Fitzgerald, who is young and smart and sharp-tongued and has a huge chip on her shoulder about the Chruch.
Naturally, they fall in love.
And they spend three seasons denying it and claiming to be just friends. Of course, these are BBC seasons, consisting of 6, 8, or 12 episodes (there were only three seasons with these characters in them). They are utterly adorable. I'll spoil you about how that ends, if you like, because I can't imagine going into their last episode unspoiled.
The other plots tend to revolve around Brian Quigley, the local vaguely-sketchy-but-in-an-ultimately-good-way real estate wheeler-dealer; his daughter, Niamh, and her husband Ambrose, the local police officer; and a few of the regulars at Assumpta's pub--a vet, a teacher, a mechanic, and a farmer.
It's a comedy/drama, akin to Northern Exposure (it's often called the Irish NX). When it's funny, it can be hilarious, and it's often rather dark as well, even in the same episode. They do a lot of stuff on the relevance of the Catholic Church in modern Irish life, but never in a preachy sort of way; it's extremely light on the theology. There's some excellent writing--most episodes have intricately detailed plots and really good characterization--and some really good acting from everyone, especially Dervla Kirwan (Assumpta) and Stephen Tomkinson (Peter), who have damn well made me cry. The combination makes for a collection of characters I'd love to know in real life.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-09-01 05:40 am (UTC)Oh, you'd love it. It's an ensemble show set in a small town in Ireland, about two hours south of Dublin (beautiful scenery). An young English priest, Peter Clifford, is transferred to the town (prompting outcry of "This is IRELAND! Why the hell do we need to import priests?!"), and his rather progressive views clash with the conservative nature of his boss, the parish priest. While he quickly comes to love the town, and most residents to love him, he finds that it's definitely a different way of life. The other main character is the publican, Assumpta Fitzgerald, who is young and smart and sharp-tongued and has a huge chip on her shoulder about the Chruch.
Naturally, they fall in love.
And they spend three seasons denying it and claiming to be just friends. Of course, these are BBC seasons, consisting of 6, 8, or 12 episodes (there were only three seasons with these characters in them). They are utterly adorable. I'll spoil you about how that ends, if you like, because I can't imagine going into their last episode unspoiled.
The other plots tend to revolve around Brian Quigley, the local vaguely-sketchy-but-in-an-ultimately-good-way real estate wheeler-dealer; his daughter, Niamh, and her husband Ambrose, the local police officer; and a few of the regulars at Assumpta's pub--a vet, a teacher, a mechanic, and a farmer.
It's a comedy/drama, akin to Northern Exposure (it's often called the Irish NX). When it's funny, it can be hilarious, and it's often rather dark as well, even in the same episode. They do a lot of stuff on the relevance of the Catholic Church in modern Irish life, but never in a preachy sort of way; it's extremely light on the theology. There's some excellent writing--most episodes have intricately detailed plots and really good characterization--and some really good acting from everyone, especially Dervla Kirwan (Assumpta) and Stephen Tomkinson (Peter), who have damn well made me cry. The combination makes for a collection of characters I'd love to know in real life.
It's really good. I think you'd like it.