Probably the world-record breaker for the number of people concurrently crying over Leo Tolstoy, the BBC's adaptation of War and Peace has finally ended. And people are very uncool about that fact.
An outpouring of collective internet grief pooled itself on the airing of the show's final episode, with its cacophony of death, grief and heartbreak. The usual business for Russian literature. 7.2M viewers tuned in on average to the six-part series, with the first-ever extension to a Sunday evening finale being granted for its additional 20 minutes.
The episode surely took advantage of its extended run; killing off six of its characters and leaving viewers ripped to emotional shreds, struggling to say their final goodbyes to the series.
There's an Andrei Bolkonsky-shaped hole in my heart that nothing can fill.To quote someone better at statuses: hold me, Twitter #WarAndPeace
— Joanna Kozlowska (@KozlowskaJoanna) February 8, 2016
Took so much restraint to not become a sobbing mess during the final episode #WarAndPeace
— Madeline (@maddyherring) February 8, 2016
That morning after feeling - sinking in that War and Peace had finished #warandpeace #bereft
— Katherine Whiskerd (@kathfoley8) February 8, 2016
Still haven't got over the end of #WarAndPeace. It made the best Sunday nights ever, all emotions used to the max!
— Joanne Goodwill (@GoodwillJo) February 8, 2016
One small piece of consolation: scriptwriter Andrew Davies has promised to return to BBC One with an adaptation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. He'll be bypassing the hit musical to write a songless adaptation crafted directly from the original novel; for if the misery of the literary Russian world was ever to be topped, it'd certainly be by a novel which literally has "miserable" in the title.
"It’s another big epic story and I thinking people will be surprised that there is so much more to it than they maybe realise," Davies told The Telegraph. "It’s an immensely powerful story about appalling levels of poverty and deprivation and how people transcend it, it’s about redemption and revenge and the extraordinary relationship between Jean Valjean and a little girl he brings up."
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