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A
lawsuit aimed at church reform in the town of Barchester forces a decent
middle-aged clergyman ( Donald Pleasence) into a moral crisis and a conflict
with his son-in-law, a pompous archdeacon (Nigel Hawthorne ). The gracefully written and acted narrative shows glimpses of dry
wit--but in episode 3, the arrival of a new bishop (Clive Swift), his imperious wife (Geraldine McEwan)
and his devious chaplain (Alan Rickman) launches The Barchester Chronicles into a
satirical power struggle all the more mesmerizing because of the smallness of
the territory. The scheming of the citizens and clergy of this British town is
both Byzantine and wonderfully comic as the tempestuous personalities claw and
dig at each other.
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