Sharpe's Waterloo

Napoleon has escaped from Elba and Britain is at war again. As Wellington's army assembles in Belgium, Richard Sharpe, now a Lt. Colonel, is placed on the staff of the Dutch Prince of Orange, commander of a large portion of Wellington's army. Sharpe quickly learns that the Prince has no grasp of simple military tactics and quickly loses all respect for him. This is unfortunate as a decisive battle is about to be fought...at Waterloo.

This episode had the potential to be brilliant epic finale to the Sharpe series. It's all set up, the ultimate showdown - Wellington vs Napoleon - and Sharpe is there, while history is being made! There's glimpses of this but unfortunately meaningless sub-plots turn what should have been a stirring, grand story into something that's entertaining but hardly epic.

We still have the Sharpe-Rossendale feud. While this sub-plot is largely unnecessary it doesn't detract too much from the main plot.

What does though is the Prince of Orange sub-plot. Entirely fictional - I'm surprised his descendants or the government of Holland didn't sue the producers for slander! - and it consumes way too much screentime, to the point that it is the main plot, not a sub-plot. It also leads to much time wastage as Sharpe flip-flops between serving under him and upping and leaving the battle altogether.

This said, there's enough of the historical battle of Waterloo captured to make for a decent grandness to proceedings. The writers did seem to borrow a fair bit from the film 'Waterloo' (1970) for the best dialogue.

Unfortunately, it's not quite the finale either - nine years later two more episodes were produced.