tangoviudo As an avid viewer of Masterpiece Theater throughout the '70s, the appearance of this highly-touted series was something of an event for me. Listening to Alistair Cooke describing the effects of the Granada production on the British television audience at the time, however, didn't help me overcome my almost immediate and subsequent thirteen-week-long disappointment. I found the location photography interesting, but the casting was almost invariably bad - for both male and female roles (surely something could've been done to improve on the choices of the female leads - always excepting the splendid Peggy Ashcroft, who I'd learned wished to make up for the short-shrift David Lean had made of Mrs. Moore in 'A Passage to India'). Forty years after the demise of the Raj, the series perhaps evoked a nostalgia for the lost empire to British audiences. To me it evoked tedium, especially since I had to endure all thirteen weeks of it before Masterpiece Theater aired something else.

snu_grad This miniseries is compelling, well-told, beautifully filmed, and superbly acted. With a powerfully moving script, it tells the story of the complex relationship between the British and Indian people at the end of British rule of the subcontinent. It has history, romance, action, mystery, and even a mild dose of sex and violence. ;-) It definitely has something for everyone.I cried, laughed, was amazed, and said "Oh my God!" and "I knew it!" several times. I was glued to the screen and later watched my favorite scenes a second or third time.Absolutely its only shortcoming was that there were no subtitles. Being as old as it is and with the many accents, it's sometimes a bit hard to make out the exact lines. But it's so easy to follow (yet never dull) that I was never lost. If A&E ever re-releases this with enhanced sound and subtitles, I'll snag it up in a New York minute! Even my husband (who normally hates British films) really enjoyed this. He hated to miss a minute; by Chapter 3, he was utterly hooked.See this wonderful piece of work if you can. It's well worth every hour.

ronnalex The haunting story of Paul Scott's THE RAJ QUARTET brought to the screen with flawless acting and character interpretation. While the story is not a pleasant one, the screenplay captures the scope of the problems created by nearly 300 years of British presence in India. Peggy Ashcroft, Fabia Drake, Judy Parfitt, Art Malik and above all Tim Pigott-Smith, to mention but a very few of the cast, create memorable characters that come alive on the screen and will live on in your memories. Superb...

patnet ...just as I imagine India during these "interesting times". The plot (greatly simplified here!) revolves about a number of English expatriots living in India at the time of the Raj and during the difficult struggle for independence. The acting is superb, particularly Peggy Ashcroft; and as in so many British productions, great care is taken to cast brilliant actors in even the smallest of roles.The many characters' lives intersect in the most surprising ways, there are regular dollops of action and violence--this is riveting television! I remember receiving only a sound broadcast for one episode--no picture--and I sat by the screen for the full hour in rapt attention.There is much to learn about human nature, both the dark and the joyful, and about the politics of imperialism, and about an awe-inspiring country and culture, from this beautifully crafted series. Highly recommended.