Mrs. Shullivan and I booked a summer cottage and hunkered down in the evenings to binge watch multiple episodes of Mr. Selfridge all the while hoping the series would improve and hold us spellbound as the seasons progressed. This series may be loosely based on real people, and real retail store empires, but it became evident by the end of season 2 that what we were actually watching was an over dramatized "event series" whose lead actor Jeremy Piven's portrayal of the retail store giant entrepreneur Mr. Selfridge was more of a cartoon character who came across as a stand-in performer for someone else who was unfamiliar with his talking lines as well as the emotions his character was intended to evoke.
So we hung in there for all four (4) seasons and we were totally disappointed that this television series only memorable scenes were the episode ending credits which brought us ever so closer to the series ending episode. Actor Ron Cook who plays the down to earth CFO Mr. Crabb, to Mr. Selfridge was the saving grace in any scene he appeared in. Jeremy Piven however is credited as a producer, as well as a co-producer and even an executive producer so maybe he considered this series as his own special vanity project to show off his acting chops, or his crowning achievement, but instead he (personally) failed miserably and I for one am left with a low opinion of any future TV and/or film projects that the actor Jeremy Piven may be involved in if Mr. Selfridge is to be considered his baby.
I am only giving the series a more than generous 5 out of 10 rating as we invested forty (40) hours of our summer vacation late evening time in binge watching this biographical/historical series and I would otherwise be admitting I am a bigger fool than I actually am in wasting forty (40) hours of my time.
So we hung in there for all four (4) seasons and we were totally disappointed that this television series only memorable scenes were the episode ending credits which brought us ever so closer to the series ending episode. Actor Ron Cook who plays the down to earth CFO Mr. Crabb, to Mr. Selfridge was the saving grace in any scene he appeared in. Jeremy Piven however is credited as a producer, as well as a co-producer and even an executive producer so maybe he considered this series as his own special vanity project to show off his acting chops, or his crowning achievement, but instead he (personally) failed miserably and I for one am left with a low opinion of any future TV and/or film projects that the actor Jeremy Piven may be involved in if Mr. Selfridge is to be considered his baby.
I am only giving the series a more than generous 5 out of 10 rating as we invested forty (40) hours of our summer vacation late evening time in binge watching this biographical/historical series and I would otherwise be admitting I am a bigger fool than I actually am in wasting forty (40) hours of my time.