What does it mean to say that a film or television adaptation of a book is faithful to the original? I would say a faithful adaptation is like a great cover of a classic song that both compliments the original and reinterprets it. A great cover not only does the original justice but somehow also manages to become a…

Yes, and these folks slept in the nude, often several persons to a bed. That 's why I had no objection to Sigurd coming across his mother nursing Ivar in the nude, though I didn't see any point to that scene either except shock value for the great unwashed. But it was Hirst's decision to turn Ragnar's children into…

I think good historical fiction is just a guilty pleasure. It would be so easy to make "Vikings" better . . . by which I mean at least not silly. And I think the people who just want sword fights and damsels in distress would like it just as well. The actors wouldn't have to feel embarrassed to have it in their…

I’m a newcomer to “Vikings.” After previewing Season 3 and following Season 4 of “Vikings,” I’ve had to conclude that it is not historical fiction but “Bonanza” in the Viking era, a drama about a father and his sons that takes place in a period setting. Now that I’m no longer caught up in “Vikings” as credible…

I have seen "Galaxy Quest." My favorite film of this type is "Ghost Busters," which proves definitively that it is just as ridiculous to care about science as it is to be indifferent to it. After the parodies of parapsychologists, my favorite scene is the one where New Yorkers don't pay attention at all to a taxi…

This is their way of intensifying the conflict between these two men, so we think of this every time we see them. It is a form of sensationalism in the service of conformity, or a form of novelty to freshen up the tired old epic narrative plotline.

Thank you for your response. I'm assuming you mean Episode 16, the rape. The episode gets into the realm of homoerotic fan fiction when the writers portray the rape as, they have said in interviews, not about torture but psychological manipulation. There is a hint of this in the novels as well, but the way Moore…

They like epic narrative, which the dominance of this expression of the conflict between two men—the rape—now makes the center of both Season 1 and Season 2 of Moore's "Outlander." The marriage of a man and a woman is the center of Gabaldon's story, set against the backdrop of the Scottish Rebellion.

Reading is so personal anyway. Thanks for your comments.

Well, she did do that, I'll grant you. As this is not my first rodeo when it comes to corralling celebrity authors and participating in the circus of bringing literature to the stage or silver screen, I do sometimes feel like Bridget Jones at the book signing immortalized in "Bridget Jones's Diary"—or maybe it's the…

Gabaldon's dialog does not need fixing up. And just my opinion, but her take on things is not what you imagine. The masculine sensibilities and persona you pick up belong to Moore and his team: ditto the rejection of feminism. This is why showrunners should not adapt a work unless they like it well enough to adapt…

It's as if I started out watching a late romance by Shakespeare, “The Winter’s Tale,” in which the wife of a jealous husband, who learns that he killed her by mistake, miraculously returns to him after twenty years. Yet somehow I ended up watching the tragedy of “Othello,” which ends with a jealous husband’s hands…

We are in agreement that fanfiction is not worthless. In the case of Moore's "Outlander," this fanfiction makes the rape scene into a case not of torture but of psychological gamesmanship, breaking down the victim. The purpose of this is to extend the influence of the rape into Season 2. By keeping the James…

In “Outlander,” Moore and Co. do make two homosexual characters from Gabaldon’s book look “better” than they do in the novel, less silly and obsessed with pederasty in the case of the Duke of Sandringham in Episode 10 and more interested in psychological gamesmanship than in torture and rape, in the case of Black Jack…

It's like a recipe that has a lot of ingredients that I like but that doesn't come together quite right: It tastes a little off. So I keep working at it, asking how it could be better. I think a lot of that kind of experimentation goes into creating a work of dramatic art, especially a television series that…

We only disagree about categories. In Episode 6 of "Outlander," Moore and company lapse into homoerotic fan fiction by dismissing Gabaldon's treatment of Black Jack Randall and striking out on their own: i.e., fan fiction. The writers are very proud of this episode, but in my view they borrowed rather obviously and…

Diana Gabaldon does not end "Outlander" with the rape. Ron Moore & Company romanticized the rape as it occurred in the novel creating homoerotic fanfiction of it and ending Season 1 there. They changed the plot of their version of the first novel from the story of a marriage to an epic narrative pitting James Fraser…

You think I'm stuck in the difference between fact and fiction when what I'm stuck on is the difference between one kind of genre of television storytelling and another. Wouldn't it be a service to viewers and to the creator himself, Michael Hirst, to evaluate "Vikings" as the kind of television series it really is?…

When Hirst set out to create "Vikings," what genre did he have in mind?

For a very smart writer, you are mistaking my medium—academic discourse—for my message, which is both a warning and a criticism: Hirst would do well to work harder than he has to make "Vikings" play out as a genre of dramatic art, historical fiction. If he doesn't play by the rules of historical fiction, "Vikings"…