After seeing the concluding part of this drama last night the verdict is now clear, I DEFINITELY PREFER THE BOOK OVER THE TV ADAPTATION!

This third episode in many ways was a bit all over the place.  Like episode two, it left me feeling significantly underwhelmed when it was over.  The book is very detailed regarding the characterization, therefore you gradually become to really know and care about the characters as the story progresses.  The TV version was the exact opposite to this.  Three episodes was not long enough for us to get to know such a vast array of people, let alone care about them.  Take Social Worker Kay Bawden, she is such a more well-rounded character in the book. In the book you learn about her day job and all that entails, but you also find out about her somewhat disheveled home life too. This includes being with a man called Gavin Hughes(not featured in the TV version) who does not love her and just puts up with her. The briefer TV version lacked such vital narrative detail in my view.

The third episode was largely about the crucial ‘The Casual Vacancy’  position being taken-up via an election.  Despite the best efforts from ‘The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother’, we saw wet Miles Morrison win by just one vote.  This thus prompted joyous celebrations from his overbearing parents, namely Howard and Shirley Mollison(Michael Gambon and Julia McKenzie). Their fun was short lived however when near the end an adulterous Howard was outed by The Ghost.

The rest of the episode largely focused on characters Terri and Krystal Weedon(Abigail Lawries and Keeley Forsyth).  Terri finally looked to be well on the road to recovery from her drug addiction and all seemed fine, that was until her drug dealing mate got out of prison and led her astray once again.  Cornered by threats from this dealer and worried her young brother would now get taken into care, Krystal fled with Robbie.  This had disastrous consequences however.  After leaving Robbie unattended for a moment we saw him fall into a river and upon trying to find him, Krystal ended up drowning. This was then juxtaposed with a rather uplifting ending which focused on Gaia Bawden(Simona Brown) sitting next to Andrew “Arf “Price(Joe Hurst) on a bus, heavily hinting on a future romantic involvement between the two.

When comparing the book with the TV version once more, then the major difference is  how they both end. In the book towards the end we see the character Krystal Weedon becoming very isolated.  Ultimately she feels abandoned in life what with having a drug addict for a Mother and the ending of her relationship with Stuart”Fats” Wall(Brian Vernel) .  She also feels abandoned by the death of her Guardian Angel, namely Barry Fairbrother. Events then go very dark which consist of Krystal being raped and then committing suicide. The suicide is triggered after Robbie is found dead in the river after being left unattended by her. Whereas in the TV version Robbie is rescued by Vikram Jawanda(Silas Carson) and instead of committing suicide, Krystal dies by drowning. Krystal was not raped in the TV adaptation either.

Ever since reading the book I have moaned about it’s very dark ending.  There was no happy uplifting conclusion that I desperately craved for and so in some ways I felt cheated by this.  I found the ending of the book really depressing if I am honest.  After watching the less gloomy ending on television last night, I can’t believe I am saying this but I now think the darker ending in the book is better.  I now get the point that J.K Rowling is making in the book, it’s all about the depressing nature of some people’s lives. The final events in the book seemed to fit the tone of the story better. It fitted that there was no optimistic happy ending because it would have seemed out of place with the rest of the tale.  Although generally not as dark as the book, I still nevertheless found the uplifting ending of the television piece somewhat out of place.  It went from Krystal’s death to “Arf” and Gaia flirting on a bus.  This scene was also accompanied by uplifting background music.  It smacked of confusion to me on behalf of writer Sarah Phelps .

Other things that got on my nerves with the television version were again due to it jumping all over the place.  By this, I mean there were little stories going on but again not done in enough detail.  In the book psycho Simon Price(Richard Glover) gets the sack via stealing from work and as a family they then move out of the town. Here in episode three we saw him get the dreaded call to go and see his boss, but instead of getting fired he got promoted.  I wanted to see this chat with his boss but we never did. Furthermore, I was never fully sure what he did for a job either. It was something to do with electrical goods and him working in a warehouse but it was never fully made clear.

Other characters I had issue with were Miles and Samantha Mollison(played Rufus Jones and Keeley Hawes). Firstly, I got that Miles was supposed to feel overpowered and emasculated by his very overbearing parents, but I think it was overplayed to the point of being rather corny.  I think in episode two he hardly said any actual dialogue, rather just grimacing lots and comfort eating in reaction to the nasty comments posted by The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother.  In last night’s episode he found a pair at long last and finally stood up to his Mother, but I did struggle to imagine him being a solicitor due to his previous wimpy behaviour.

In last night’s episode and throughout the first two also, the marriage struggles of Miles and Samantha were hinted at and featured. I say featured but that is stretching it a tad because the scenes about it were far too few and not in enough depth in my opinion. I wanted more back story regarding her past issues with drink. We never actually saw Samantha tell him or explain to him why she had left him.  Instead all we got was a note from her saying to him, “I have left you”.  I also found the Samantha Mollison character much funnier in the book too. A really funny storyline in the novel was her having sexual fantasies about a boyband member called Jake, a boy band one of her daughters was into.  She was more rebellious in the book, a more fun type character.  I think Sarah Phelps missed a trick portraying her the way she did.

We also saw rather strange snippets from the recently widowed and now seemingly slightly deranged, Mary Fairbrother.  Again, by the end of three episodes I felt I hardly knew this character and this really frustrated me.  In an irate conversation she had with Colin “Chubby” Wall(Simon McBurney) she told him how her and Barry would have probably split up anyway, he cared more about the Weedon’s she said.  She further told him that if he got elected on to the Parish Council it would kill him too. At the end of episode three and having not seen her much apart from spoiling a ballot paper, we then saw her being sarcastic to two people buying her house.  I did not find her character believable and these ranting snippets of her were more froth than substance. The same could be said about the nervy depiction of Colin too.  I wanted to know more him as a character but we did not get this unfortunately.

After really enjoying episode one I really had high hopes for this drama. I was pleasantly surprised at first how it appeared to be better than to book.  However, by the end of episode three these high hopes had severely crashed and burned.  I soooooo wanted it to be brilliant but I’m afraid it was very far from being that.  Trying to condense this five hundred page book into one hundred and eighty minutes of television just simply did not work.  The screenplay narrative did not flow very well, it all seemed a bit rushed to me and lacked coherency at times. You got narrative about lots of characters and individuals, without yet it being enough to fully satisfy you.  For example, I was stunned when the character Sukhvinder Jawande(Ria Choony) shouted something at the end of episode three because she had hardly said anything up to that point in the entire drama. I did not really care about any of the characters because the scenes were over that quick in a flash, before then jumping on to something else.  The only characters I truly believed and liked were Barry Fairbrother and Andrew “Arf Price(played by Roy Kinnear and Joe Hurst). I thought Joe Hurst was great in his debut TV role. The rest of the characters were verging on being caricatures sadly.

The book moved me in a way that the TV adaptation did not. Looking back now, I may have been unhappy with the bleak ending in the book but I guess a well written depressing ending, is far better than a poorly structured happy one(as in the TV drama).  If you want to feel satisfaction with The Casual Vacancy then ONLY read the book, IT WON’T LEAVE YOU FEELING UNSATISFIED LIKE THE TV VERSION DID WITH ME!