TV Gold

After the domination of the Communist movement plot (admirably spearheaded by Patrick Stewart?s Lenin character), the seventh episode, ?Dearest Nicky? presents, as is typical of the series, yet another pleasant change of pace, highlighting, as it does, more domestic issues for the Russian Tsar. We open, unusually, with Kahzer Wilhelm II narrating the latest of his regular letters to his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II. These scenes do crop up, from time to time, as the episode progresses and certainly go some way to illustrate Willie?s position on foreign policy. It is clear that Nicholas and ?Willy? have a good relationship (illustrating the bond between the houses of Hohenzollern & Romanov), however, polite though he is, Nicholas avoids relating how he does not share the Kaisers taste in the art he continually sends him and his wife. We focus more on Nicholas in this episode as he has to face up to the growing unrest from the people about general living conditions as well the continuing tensions with the Japanese. In the latter issue we certainly witness a difference in style regarding how best to deal with the escalating conflict from both Willie and Nicholas. Although this is no doubt an important aspect to the episode it is the growing civil unrest in Russia situation which takes greater prominence beginning with Roman Catholic Father Gapon?s initial meeting with local workers. In this scene they convincingly convey the historic situation that had developed in St Petersburg towards the end of 1904. With suitably drawn features Gapon (played by Kenneth Colley) passionately begins a moral crusade, insighting the people to take their protests directly to the Tsar himself. With Nicholas relating the terrible events, excellent use of archive photos and sound effects convincingly convey the ?Bloody Sunday? atrocity of January 1905 that resulted from their peaceful protest. So to sum up I?d say that despite being relatively free of familiar faces in the cast (apart from those appearances I have already mentioned in previous episode comments) the actual plot is interesting and really quite engaging.