In the final episode of Brideshead Revisited Charles Ryder and Julia sit on the steps in the enormous house and agree to part. They're both weeping and generally inarticulate, but one of the 'broken sentences' Charles manages to mutter between stifled sobs is 'So long to say so little'. It could serve quite nicely for the last word on this paradoxically compelling serial. Rather like [Evelyn Waugh's] book itself, I suspect that it was the first half that got us watching the second. The departure of Sebastian, leaving centre stage to Charles Ryder, consigned most of the final episodes to a level of infuriating dullness. It's foreseeable defect, but one which scriptwriter John Mortimer seemed reluctant to avoid.

There's been much talk of Mortimer's faithfulness to the text, but in changing medium—from novel to TV series—such commendable rectitude can often be technically inept if not wrongheaded. This was particularly evident in episode six, where Julia is finally led on stage. Almost the entire episode was a sepia flashback of the courtship of Rex Mottram. In the book this largely takes the form of straightforward reported speech, but there are also some pages of direct conversation—post facto reminiscence by Julia and Charles. This is a clumsy device in the novel, but on the screen it comes across as sheer thoughtlessness. The voice-over renditions of this dialogue, and the clear intimacy that the interlocuters share, effectively deprive the forthcoming Charles/Julia romance of any vestige of suspense. We know from the very outset of Julia's appearance, while we're still in the process of learning about her and Rex, that she and Charles will end up together. One minute Charles is an art student in Paris, then suddenly we're presented with a view of him on an ocean liner arm in arm with Julia. To someone who doesn't know the book such methods of moving the story on must appear bafflingly amateurish.

Mortimer, of course, is simply reproducing Waugh's own struggles with the plot, and to that extent is blameless. But, while Mortimer's adaptation is by and large unobtrusive, he can't entirely escape responsibility as he does occasionally contribute material of his own.

The most notable expansion has been of the general strike episode. The strike, and the party Charles and Boy Mulcaster go to while it's on, occupy some five and a half pages in the novel. In the serial these peripheral events took up an entire episode. The party scenes in particular had to be supplied almost entirely by Mortimer. This isn't a bad thing; in fact these scenes were amusing and entertaining. The point is that if you can take these sort of liberties with the text on one occasion, then there are no grounds for not taking them on others, and the excuse of 'scrupulous adherence' is no longer viable. (p. 23)