Les Misérables: Season 1

It's a bold move to air all six episodes of anything at all in the exact same timeslot on the exact same nights as the final season of Game of Thrones, but I guess PBS isn't too worried about losing viewers to HBO. Here, of course, is a miniseries adaptation of Victor Hugo's famous novel, probably best known today in its streamlined Broadway musical form. Now, I love that musical shamelessly and without reservation, but I've also read and enjoyed the 1400-page book, which contains plenty of story elements and character beats that the musical understandably cuts out.

This adaptation very faithfully recreates the novel's story, and honestly, it's kind of a sprawling and incoherent mess! The book contains five volumes and, through them, tells the tragic stories of several different characters who cross paths; it is decidedly not one long tragedy about any one person or concept in particular, though! Fantine's tragedy is that of a blissful summer fling turning into single parenthood, destitute poverty and early death. Eponine's tragedy is one of unrequited love... and early death. Marius's tragedy is that he's been renounced by his wealthy family as a class traitor for siding with those who would fight for social justice. Javert's tragedy is, ultimately, his inability to reconcile a conflict between the letter of the law and an undeniable moral good; he resolves this by killing himself, all melodramatic-like. Then there's the overall tragedy of the failed June Rebellion, and of the living conditions of the wretched Paris slums. There are like three characters in this thing who get happy endings.

Anyway, all these things are very sad and all these stories are very touching, but a six-episode miniseries doesn't seem to give them all enough time to breathe. The musical very brilliantly ends with Valjean on his deathbed being sung to be the ghosts of Fantine (who we haven't seen since Act I) and Eponine (who he never even really met in the musical) in a motf we've heard throughout the musical, and that simple use of a callback is just goddamn beautiful and touching, just like it is when the musical ends with Valjean arriving at the gates of heaven to a modified version of the show's biggest number, "Do You Hear the People Sing?" I just fucking works, guys!

But here in the miniseries - and really, in the book - the tragedy and death remains unconnected and unremarked upon. Fantine just kind of dies and then ceases mattering to the story. The revolution fails and there's no "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" number where Marius laments that all of his friends are dead for no reason.

So in the end, maybe six hours is still too short a time to devote to adapting Les Misérables for the screen or the stage. Maybe there's just no satisfying way to pull the disparate threads of the novel together unless you do it with bombastic songs, and maybe so much of the beauty of the musical really is of the musical so to speak.

And yeah, if I'm being critical, I'm not sure how much I liked Dominic West playing Jean Valjean. He did just fine with the role, don't get me wrong, but when you've made a television career out of being alcoholic trainwreck Jimmy McNulty and the generally unlikable guy Noah from The Affair, it's tough for me to buy into a wholesale character redemption story. I'm sorry!