Capsule Review

For my taste, the PBS Masterpiece mini-series, "Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office" (based on a true national scandal) is every bit as great as its reputation and huge success that it had in England. An ensemble cast, but starring Toby Jones.  Usually he plays offbeat, quirky characters, sometimes villains, but here he's quiet, low-key, down-to-earth.  That's much the way the series is -- but very personal, involving and often-deeply moving.  Crushing at times as you witness deeply-decent and innocent people being rolled, many with lives ruined, some wrongly imprisoned, all for reasons they don't understand by a government behemoth.  Yet, appalling and tragic as much of the story is -- it's also about the fight back and is very much uplifting, as well.

The story is about small-town sub-postmasters (sort of like a step-up from people who run Mailbox Etc. stores) who are prosecuted for major theft, each told they were the only one with the problem they were claiming, when it turns out it was a systemwide computer error.  That simple description only because to do justice to the building emotion of everything.  Though the series does a great job in focusing the story in a manageable tightness, it actually is still somewhat going on after 20 years, and 160 million pounds in restitution have (so far...) been paid.

Two episodes down, two to go.  If you subscribe to PBS, you can catch up on the series on PBS Passport.  In fact, all four episodes are available there, including a short follow-up featurette on the true story.

Here's the short trailer from when it aired in England. It only touches the surface. As it says, "The largest miscarriage of justice in British history."