Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - 'The Education of a Magician'

Take or leave us, only please believe us, we ain't never gonna be respectable.

Jonathan Strange is, aptly enough, a stranger in a strange land. From Lisbon into the interior of Portugal he trails the army, seeking a military use for his magic in keeping with the goal of respectability.

Wellington: Could a magician kill a man by magic?
Strange: I suppose a magician might; but a gentleman never could.

War is, however, Hell, and after the death of his manservant and the destruction of the books he brought from Norrell's collection, Strange is forced to dig into his reserves, deploying strange mists and necromancy from the days of the Raven King in the name of the war effort. All of this leaves him somewhat shaken, but greatly respected by the soldiers, the nickname 'Merlin' rapidly going from a joke to a term of true honour.

Meanwhile, in Blighty, the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair once more promises to make Stephen Black a king as he plots to secure Mrs Strange as one of his vassals, but is thwarted by her good sense and caution.

Lady Pole: Can you think of any instance where you were saved by your husband?
Arabella: I am more in the habit of saving him.

I really like this woman, but alas she makes little headway with the stubborn Lord Pole and Mr Norrell still insists that Lady Pole's madness is incurable by magic and refuses to confess any guilt in the matter, even monitoring her doings and intercepting Arabella's letters to her husband to maintain his position and reputation. As a result, Lady Pole attempts his murder, only for Childermass - who is pretty awesome this week*, acting as Norrell's conscience as well as attempting to warn off Segundus and Honeyfoot before Norrell gets heavy-handed with their school of magic, and generally being the no-nonsense northern one in the Norrell camp - to take the bullet.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is powering through the plot at a rate of knots. This has the benefit of pace, although it loses out some of the crawling dread and in particular the consuming horror of the Gentleman's insinuation into the lives of Lady Pole and Stephen Black. All in all, however, it does what a successful adaptation does, turning the book into a subtly different, but more televisual beast that is still just as good.

* I spend a possibly inordinate amount of time considering which character from a show I want to see get their own quirky PI spin-off. For this one, my current front runner is (Arabella) Strange and Childermass, Detectives of the Weird.