To Be the Best

This, to me, is a very good TV movie showing the problems a career woman must face with family love, rivalry with members of a family-owned business. It may be very different from the book by Barbara Taylor Bradford but the producer and director have the right and option to change the contents and story so long as the TV movie is entertaining to the TV audience. It could be foolish and idiotic to keep comparing this program with the original book.

Having sat down to watch what I expected to be a pretty dire video while eating a take out curry, I was quite amazed at the sheer banality of the plot and script, and the unremitting woodenness of the acting.

However, and I know this sounds like a set-up, one person made me stop chewing long enough to check the cast listing. As it happened the role was not listed as far as I could see, and I had to come onto imdb to identify the actress.

While far from redeeming the whole shocker, Catherine Roman plays her heart out [in the nicest sense] in the role of "waitress" - yes, you heard right, waitress! According to imdb this is her one and only professional role, which is a shame.

Watch it before you scoff and see if you agree.

Cheers all - make mine an extra double decaff.

After watching A Woman of Substance and Hold the Dream, this final installment was a bitter let down. I don't know why Jenny Seagrove was not in this, but the usually excellent Lindsay Wagner was on auto-pilot as Paula O'Neill and Anthony Hopkins was wasted in a pointless role. Can you tell I didn't like it yet?!?

A wafer-thin plot, totally ignoring the best parts of BTB's book and a decidedly dicky script did not redeem this - well, I don't know what to call it really.

The whole thing also looks very dated, even though it was only filmed in 1992 - it looks more like '82 to me!

I would advise people who have read the books to stick to the books and the first two mini-series and avoid this one like the plague!

The legend of Emma Hart continues in this third instalment of Barbara Taylor BradfordÂ's smash hit To Be The Best.

It leaves the simple but breathtaking views of Yorkshire behind and settles amongst the glamour, corruption, and power, in Tokyo.

It has been some years since the beautiful and immensely powerful Paula O'Neil (now played by Lindsay Wagner) banished her traitor cousins Sarah Lowther (Claire Oberman) and Jonathon Ainsley (Christopher Cazenove) from the powerful Harte family for cheating her beloved grandmothers world dominating empire. But now she faces fresh threats from her vindictive and egotistical cousins, Jonathon has his sights set on claiming a considerable amount of the Hartes shares and it seems that no-one will prevent him from owning the family empire he was excluded from.

Also starring Anthony Hopkins as Jack Figg, Paula's head of security. To Be The Best promises to be one of the best sequels ever created from the hand of a truly inspirational novelist.

After watching the previous two episodes in this trilogy, I wouldn't have even known this was IN the series were it not for the character names! Jenny Seagrove was BRILLIANT as Emma Harte and very good as Paula O'Neill but, for some reason (and I strongly suspect that she, herself declined this third part! I would have!) as another commentator has already asked, why on earth was an American actress cast as an English businesswoman?

Of particular interest though was the continuity not better adhered to between episodes? In Hold the Dream (the second in the series) There is an excellent close-up of Emma Harte's grave where the inscription reads, "In loving memory of Emma Harte Lowther-Ainsley who died 15th Jan 1986 aged 80 years. Sadly Missed by All" whilst, in this film there is also a very good close-up of her gravestone with the inscription, "I loving memory of Emma Harte 1889 - 1970". If the producers can't do better than this, then perhaps they are in the wrong business! Mind you, after this long, perhaps they HAVE found their true calling - and it won't be in filmmaking!

Whilst the first episode "A Woman of Substance" was a classic British production (and, by the way, still the biggest audience record-holder for Channel 4 in England), this final episode is more like a pretty poor version of "Days of OUr Lives" or "The Bold and the Beautiful"!

By the way, just in passing, does anyone else think that Jenny Seagrove is a double of Elizabeth Montgomery (of "Bewitched" fame)? I wonder if Jenny can wiggle her nose!