Tale of the Titanic disaster in four parts. The first three tell the same basic story but through the eyes of passengers in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class (steerage). The story lines overlap and all meet in the same disastrous finale: the sinking of the ship.Although there are no big names in the cast, several are familiar faces (Maria Doyle Kennedy, Linus Roache, Toby Jones, Steven Waddington, Stephen Campbell Moore, Celia Imrie, James Wilby, Linda Kash).To my knowledge this is the only "Titanic" story that has included the real-life Dorothy Gibson (played by Sophie Winkleman), an American movie actress, who survived the disaster. Back in the US, she was rushed into "Saved from the Titanic" within a month of the sinking. She played herself, recounting the disaster, but was so overcome by grief, she suffered a nervous breakdown during the filming and retired from acting. The 1912 film was an absolute sensation, one of the biggest hits of the time. The film was tragically lost in a 1914 studio fire.

The James Cameron film is a big-budget Hollywood studio disaster/action movie, in which the main characters are fabrications who are not based on historical fact. This television series is a sober and serious drama that tells the story of class conflict and tragedy, based on real life characters who actually were present on the voyage. They are two different things. I was very moved by this version. It takes patience and attention to detail to appreciate the emotional momentum that builds to the final episode. Special effects are not the focus here--appreciate the subtlety of the writing and the fine performances of the actors involved.

ABC-TV lucked out in that reports say almost nobody watched their "much anticipated" TITANIC mini-series. Mediocre is a kind word for it.We got through the entire 4 hours in one sitting; by pre-recording on VHS where it's easy to fast forward through commercials. So many commercials. Literally, every 5 minutes a cluster of 12 (plus the pop ups at the bottom of the screen.There were no nice people on this voyage, just nasty back-biters; so many too stupid to grasp (in reference to the lifeboats) "This one floats, that one is sinking. Get in." NO,,no,,no.. I must go back for my copy of Aesop's Fables. Good grief! James Cameron's wonderful teeny-bopper romance version is not threatened. Nor is the earlier 20th Century-Fox version with Clifton Webb. The greatest Titanic of all was "A Night to Remember" (1959) -- and the most mesmurising sea-rescue movie was "Abandon Ship." With the conclusion of "Desperate Housewives" there will remain no reason at all to tune in ABC-TV. The network that gave us "Lost" has entered permanent decline. Sad!

I thought it was good. Not great, but good. The back and forth with all the characters/events was a bit much. It left me scratching my head towards the end of the first episode. Even when I got what they were doing I still felt it was too ambitious and confusing (see Intolerance 1916).Though I'm not an expert, the sets looked good as did the cgi. It blended well with the set elements. I thought the acting was good for the most part. Noah Reid, who played Harry Widener particularly impressed me. Let's be honest, any love arc between two young people in this show would have been invariably compared to Jack and Rose. I think Harry and Georgiana's story can stand on it's own though. Character development was pretty good despite the ill advised editing. I was glad that they finally found an actor who resembles Thomas Andrews. The man playing J. J. Astor looked the part too. However, I was embarrassed by how Jack Thayer was portrayed. They seemed to get the hammiest actor they could find. Jack Thayer, based on my reading seemed to be a sensitive, reflective lad. He's portrayed heres as an obnoxious mama's boy. Despite his small part, that probably irked me the most. The coldness of the water was not depicted realistically either. You didn't get that sense of paralyzing pain that was in the Cameron movie. You would think that they could have added cgi breath to reflect the cold at least.So all in all, not greatness but I enjoyed watching it. I think people definitely should have watched all the episodes before reviewing this.