Mentioned this elsewhere but worth going into this with a little more depth.
This is an eight episode series, which IMO is one of the best dramas that the BBC ever made.
Starring Jack Hedly, filmed in beautiful Crete using local actors and some top British talent.
The plot
Alan Haldane during WW2 served with the partisan army defending Crete from the Nazis.
He was a hero, nicknamed The Lionheart, and now thirty years later returns to Crete after his wife's death. Greeted by the islanders as a returning hero by most but not all.
He discovers he left behind a mess thirty years previously, a pregnant girl called Malina.
To avoid shame her mother married her off to a man she didn't love, a ruined life, because of Haldane.
The mother, a matriarchal vicious woman wants revenge for the humiliation put upon her family.
Haldane is told all this by his lawyer friend, played by Neil McCarthy, (Thawn Power of Kroll Dr Who), Haldane claims he wrote to Malina but received no reply , so he just moved on. This is denied by his friend, she received no letters.
He settles down on Crete, meets his daughter without telling her who he is, and falls in love with a woman called Annika, who turns out to be Malina's sister, and she doesn't know of his past actions. It's a mess really!
The mother gathers forces to rally against him and will go to any lengths including murder.
The show's title derives from the Cretan legend that states that Charon ferries the souls of the dead into Hades, and must be paid, so coins are placed in the mouths of the dead. So when Haldane gets a letter with just two words " For Charon" and two coins, he knows his in deep do-do.
Lalla Ward appears in episode 2 as the daughter of another returning partisan hero, but his heroics were very different and problematic.
Gareth Thomas, with an Aussie accent appears on episode 4 bringing a coffin containing his grandfather to be buried in Crete but runs up against a family feud that prevents the burial, Haldane tries to help but discovers that Annika his lover is of the family preventing this burial, her mother, the evil Matriarch ,sees an opportunity to break her daughter's relationship with Haldane as part of her vendetta.
Blakes7 star Sally Knyvette is in episode 6 as a recovering addict , and the series ends in a jaw dropping finale of bitterness revenge tragedy murder and a showdown between Annika and her mother that left me stunned when I saw it .
The series is on youtube, original soundtrack with Dutch subtitles.
DETAILED EPISODE BY EPISODE REVIEWS START HERE.
https://www.imdforums.com/threads/who-pays-the-ferryman-ep1-return-to-yesterday.5077/
This is an eight episode series, which IMO is one of the best dramas that the BBC ever made.
Starring Jack Hedly, filmed in beautiful Crete using local actors and some top British talent.
The plot
Alan Haldane during WW2 served with the partisan army defending Crete from the Nazis.
He was a hero, nicknamed The Lionheart, and now thirty years later returns to Crete after his wife's death. Greeted by the islanders as a returning hero by most but not all.
He discovers he left behind a mess thirty years previously, a pregnant girl called Malina.
To avoid shame her mother married her off to a man she didn't love, a ruined life, because of Haldane.
The mother, a matriarchal vicious woman wants revenge for the humiliation put upon her family.
Haldane is told all this by his lawyer friend, played by Neil McCarthy, (Thawn Power of Kroll Dr Who), Haldane claims he wrote to Malina but received no reply , so he just moved on. This is denied by his friend, she received no letters.
He settles down on Crete, meets his daughter without telling her who he is, and falls in love with a woman called Annika, who turns out to be Malina's sister, and she doesn't know of his past actions. It's a mess really!
The mother gathers forces to rally against him and will go to any lengths including murder.
The show's title derives from the Cretan legend that states that Charon ferries the souls of the dead into Hades, and must be paid, so coins are placed in the mouths of the dead. So when Haldane gets a letter with just two words " For Charon" and two coins, he knows his in deep do-do.
Lalla Ward appears in episode 2 as the daughter of another returning partisan hero, but his heroics were very different and problematic.
Gareth Thomas, with an Aussie accent appears on episode 4 bringing a coffin containing his grandfather to be buried in Crete but runs up against a family feud that prevents the burial, Haldane tries to help but discovers that Annika his lover is of the family preventing this burial, her mother, the evil Matriarch ,sees an opportunity to break her daughter's relationship with Haldane as part of her vendetta.
Blakes7 star Sally Knyvette is in episode 6 as a recovering addict , and the series ends in a jaw dropping finale of bitterness revenge tragedy murder and a showdown between Annika and her mother that left me stunned when I saw it .
The series is on youtube, original soundtrack with Dutch subtitles.
DETAILED EPISODE BY EPISODE REVIEWS START HERE.
https://www.imdforums.com/threads/who-pays-the-ferryman-ep1-return-to-yesterday.5077/
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