Kristy Mahoney

I began watching this series having been told that it would be somewhat darker than the book series that I read completely, several times through, as a preteen. I was okay with that. It's likely an orphan child in the Victorian era may have suffered a number of things they might later speak of only a little. Despite my willingness to accept some darkness, however, I felt the series immediately went too far. The series author felt the need to insert several highly dramatic events into the storyline that neither exist in nor fit with the original storyline. There is no need to send Matthew chasing desperately after an Anne they foolishly sent alone back to the asylum, suffering an accident and head injury in his mad chase. There is no need to make almost every supporting character a caricature of the worst type of people, even as the main characters retain most of their recognizability. It feels at times that the series' intent is to pit Anne against all of the social challenges of both the Victorian and present eras while expecting little good of anyone but the few closest to Anne. In doing so it becomes a polemic against social ills but loses its believability. Few people would face every single one of these challenges. The series might have been better served to be more selective. This is too bad, because the casting of the main characters was very well done. We find an Anne, Marilla, and Mathew who very well match the temperament of the characters in the book and who retain the most recognizable aspects of each. This series had so much potential if it had sought to tell a story instead of to be preachy about social issues. A little subtlety would have gone a long ways.