I was impressed with the 3/4 of the 2 part TV film that I actually saw (the 1st night was laundry night and the 2nd half came on while I was having a loooong phone call). I have seen from the IMDb message boards that the writers played fast-and-loose with the facts at times...well, THAT'S never happened before!;) The problem with chronicling a major disaster of that kind is the absence of eye-witnesses that lived through the event. Of course, too, it was almost 100 years ago so people who DID survive have passed on due to age.
I do believe that from what I've read in books/the net and seen on TV that the explosion was an accident... I noticed that people from Halifax were also adamant about that point. It was a very dramatic piece. The German spy bit was just a plot-device, I believe... unprovable and not very important. I haven't studied what the temper of the times was so I can't comment on the captain's anti-war speech. But to move on...
As I said above, I was very impressed by the FX used in the actual explosion sequence. The quality is high and the horror of it is VERY real: you're almost cringing at the thought of the people oohing and ahhing by the waterfront just seconds before the explosion and when you see people in their homes and schools surrounded by glass. The idea of showing people witnessing the disaster from several different places was also interesting.
Good acting from what I saw and good capture of the period.
I do believe that from what I've read in books/the net and seen on TV that the explosion was an accident... I noticed that people from Halifax were also adamant about that point. It was a very dramatic piece. The German spy bit was just a plot-device, I believe... unprovable and not very important. I haven't studied what the temper of the times was so I can't comment on the captain's anti-war speech. But to move on...
As I said above, I was very impressed by the FX used in the actual explosion sequence. The quality is high and the horror of it is VERY real: you're almost cringing at the thought of the people oohing and ahhing by the waterfront just seconds before the explosion and when you see people in their homes and schools surrounded by glass. The idea of showing people witnessing the disaster from several different places was also interesting.
Good acting from what I saw and good capture of the period.