by Shoshanna Mccollum

Created on: December 12, 2008   Last Updated: May 14, 2009

Paradise Lost: The Thorn Birds Turns 25

A quarter century ago, a television miniseries made its debut with a power that gripped women of all ages and walks of life. We tuned in night after night to get the next installment of this passionately told tale, to find out the fate of the doe-eyed Meggie Cleary played by Rachel Ward and the beautiful Richard Chamberlain as Father Ralph de Bricassart. The story seeped into our skin as well as our souls. That miniseries was The Thorn Birds adapted from the best-selling novel by Colleen McCullogh. Call it a soap opera or chick-flick if you will, but what is it about this epic story that keeps women of all ages and walks of life coming back and wanting more? How come is this story still pertinent today and why has this series endured?

The year 1983 was when The Thorn Birds first aired. Directed by Dayrl Duke, this show was a lavish spectacle that spared no detail and took great effort to remain faithful to the author's original vision. In spite of the controversy that surrounded the series (McDonald's threatened to pull their advertising) the production won the Golden Globe Award for best miniseries. There is a gritty, almost otherworldly beauty of the location setting in Australia. Then there was the forbidden fruit taboo appeal of the smoldering relationship between Meggie and Father Ralph: I love you but I love God more, is the iconic line fatefully spoken from Ralph de Bricassart's lips that still echoes a quarter century later.

Perhaps what keeps The Thorn Birds compelling is how tragically flawed all the characters really are. Sure Father Ralph oozes sexiness, but he is weak and also a fool. How could he not have known that Dane is his son? That man lived in a state of denial. Meggie is doomed to repeat the mistakes of her cold-hearted mother by never showing her daughter Justine the love she deserved until it is all but too late. Her brothers are nice enough guys, but clueless and no doubt that's why they never got married. One can't but help feel sorry for that rotten Luke O'Neill because he is such a schmuck.

Sometimes art imitates life and twenty-five years later, some things have changed. The scene where Father Ralph is overcome and breathlessly hesitates when giving communion to a girl resembling the young Meggie comes off as downright icky now, in the wake of the pedophile priest scandal within the Catholic Church. Richard Chamberlain would publicly announce he was homosexual decades after The Thorn Birds first aired. There really is no surprise in this. That's why he played the role of a man no woman could have so well.

Lets not even talk about the half-baked attempt at a Thorn Birds sequel that aired in 1996. Whose idea was that anyway? Nothing like striking while the iron is hot! Worst of it all the sequel did not cast Rachel Ward as Meggie now that really was a sin. When all is said and done however, The Thorn Birds has aged rather well. Sometimes a television series can look stiff and dated years after the fact, but not this one. It is still as luminous as ever and remains a rich poignant story about life.

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