Luckily, Doctor Who failed to disappoint as much as I'd feared. (There's nothing like looking forward to something to make you worry about being let down.)
I thought the Easter treat might be further improved by an adaptation, finally, of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea, that came via the Sci Fi Channel to Channel 4 over Easter. But that, truly, was a let-down. The second book, the Tombs of Atuan, was expanded, and changed into a conspiracy-theory subplot. The priestesses of Atuan, rather than being cultists of a crazed and vaguely malevolent power, in this version are charged with the glorious mission of imprisoning the evil. That the plot is changed is part of the prerogative of retelling, but the mythology and the poetry was lost with it. Oddly, I was most annoyed by the fact that Sparrowhawk's use and real names were swapped around.
Apparently, Le Guin has an article on her displeasure at the series at slate, but I can't connect to it at the moment.
