PBS (Sun., Jan. 4, 9 p.m. ET)
B-
Oh, those Brits. They may have taken over half the world in their heyday, but on TV now they act so fragile, so benign, so intentionally eccentric. This Mr. Chips is a textbook example of such a boutique Brit. As a young schoolmaster he's practically driven to unemployment and suicide by a bunch of bratty boys; he solves the problem with a good cricket match. He lives in a time, the early 1900s, when people are shocked breathless at the sight of a woman riding a bicycle. He sees an airplane and sighs, like a refugee from Outlaws: "I'd go back to the stagecoach if I could." I want to slap the man and tell him to get real. For unlike the original Mr. Chipses—Robert Donat in the 1939 movie or even Peter O'Toole in the 1969 musical-Roy Marsden as this Mr. Chips has too little strength to shine through the silliness, too little character. Still, Chips does have his charm. Marsden portrays him as a bumbler and a mediocre man of manners who learns to be a little human from his young wife, played by Jill Meager. He's endearing, but not enough to carry a three-hour miniseries.
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