YMMV / The Chronicles of Narnia (BBC)

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Camilla Power's portrayal of Jill Pole is widely beloved by the fandom, helped by the fact it's the only live action portrayal of the character.
• Fandom Rivalry: With the Walden Media films to some extent, over their faithfulness to the books.
• Fight Scene Failure: The Battle of Beruna and the battle against Miraz's army are fairly amateurish and not helped by the lack of budget and extras.
• Growing the Beard: It's agreed that the series took an upswing in production values with Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The child actors had become more comfortable in their roles, with more veterans like Samuel West and Warwick Davis to help carry the story. Voyage of the Dawn Treader is also a very episodic book, making it a good fit for a TV adaptation.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The discussion of Fairy Tale Motifs at Ramandu's Island in Voyage of the Dawn Treader takes on amusing tones when you realize that Gabrielle Anwar played two fairy tale characters in Once Upon a Time. One of which is Rapunzel, and she appears here with long golden hair.
• Memetic Mutation
  • Sophie Wilcox, who played Lucy in the BBC series, says she got lots of comments about being chubby in the first season. She was also described in a 1988 letter to the viewer feedback program “Points of View” as looking like the daughter of Mister and Mrs Beaver because of her buck teeth.
• Narm: The series frequently suffers from this
  • Barbara Kellerman is a Large Ham who behaves in a ridiculously over the top manner as Jadis. She responds to a simple question from Edmund with a hilarious Big "NO!".
  • The ending of The Silver Chair where Aslan and Caspian just randomly fly up into the sky for no good reason.
• Narm Charm: There still manages to be a sense of wonder and adventure in these versions, despite a lot of the cheesiness.
  • The BBC series has a lot of narm, but it's generally considered endearing because it is still the most faithful adaptation.
  • Despite Jadis' enormously Large Ham tendencies her, there are more than a few fans who enjoyed her for a combination of her acting, costume, and imposing voice; even when she was Chewing the Scenery with abandon.
  • Jadis comes as hammy in the book - at the very latest when she gets to say the line from Shakespeare's Richard III "in that knowledge, despair and die!" In the play, variations on that line drag on for all of a scene - so the carry-over audience reaction to hearing it anywhere else is: "just kill him already instead of filling half an evening dramatisising about it!", making anyone who says that an insta-ridiculous drama queen.
• Questionable Casting:
  • In the BBC adaptation, Richard Dempsey is cast as Peter, yet is unfortunately much shorter than the rest of his siblings, making him look more like a younger brother rather than the eldest. Sophie Wilcox is also considered to be far too tall to play Lucy, and looking more like the oldest (although her performance is seen as fine). Sophie Cook as Susan, by contrast, is actually considered by some to be superior to Anna Popplewell in the 2005 film.
  • Barbara Kellerman takes the cake in the BBC version. She's Chewing the Scenery in every scene and acting like a pantomime villain with no subtlety. She did thankfully tone it down when playing the Hag in Prince Caspian and the Green Lady in The Silver Chair.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Samuel West would get his BAFTA nominated role in Howards End just two years after playing King Caspian.
  • Gabrielle Anwar has a small role as Ramandu's daughter years before The Tudors, Burn Notice and Once Upon a Time.
• Special Effect Failure: At the beginning of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when the children land in the water near the ship on the open sea, the water is obviously very shallow, and the bottom can be seen.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Warwick Davis manages to convince you he actually is a heroic talking mouse, and not just wearing a dwarf-sized mouse costume.

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