As the Victorian World Turns

Family series on U.S. television have laugh tracks, Doris Day, cute kids, lovable ghosts, Fred MacMurray and hilarious situations. What they don't have with any consistency is writing, characterization, drama, style and insight. Except, this season, for The Forsyte Saga, which begins a 26-week series this Sunday night on National Educational Television. For a turn-of-the-century English family, the Forsytes have everything: a generation gap (in fact, a three-generation gap), extramarital lust, intramarital lust, rape, divorce, birth, death, intrigue.

For those who have forgotten their Galsworthy, the first installment is hard to follow without a genealogy (see chart). It introduces 22 of the show's 120 characters with scarcely a pause for breath, then plunges into the troubled life of young Jolyon, played by Kenneth More, a black-sheep painter who scandalizes the family by setting up housekeeping with his daughter's governess, played by Lana Morris. Margaret Tyzack, as Jolyon's cousin Winifred, marries a ne'er dowell. And then there's Soames, Winifred's brother, who looks like a cross between Abraham Lincoln and a character from Dark Shadows. Soames, done to a turn by Eric Porter, is a dour sort, with never a thought of sex in his legal mind. Ah, but tune in the next week, when Soames meets Irene, portrayed by Nyree Dawn Porter.

What distinguishes The Forsyte Saga from Peyton Place and the Secret Storm is its distinguished origins and its careful preparation. The BBC bought rights to the saga from MGM, then Producer Donald Wilson and four writers spent more than a year turning out an adaptation that is remarkably faithful to Galsworthy. Presented on Sunday evenings at 7:25, the series became such a craze in Britain last year that many clergymen rescheduled evensong services in order to avoid losing their congregations. An estimated 17 million viewers tuned in each week. Hostesses had to schedule dinner parties around the series. Sunday night bingo attendance slumped. It even became something of an international obsession. In New Zealand, cricket matches began an hour earlier. In Yugoslavia, where the series was aired, new editions of Galsworthy's works have been brought out in Serbian and Croatian. Even Russia will not escape: Soviet dubbers are now at work on the series so that it can be shown there next year.

While it is difficult to predict what Forsyte's fate will be in America, it deserves to gather a coterie of faithful followers. The series is a stylish and fast-paced portrayal of Victorian morals and manners as evidenced by one fascinating family. On one hand, it is gripping, dramatic and highly believable. On the other, it is totally entertaining, thus ably and artistically showing what television can do when it sets its standards high.

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