TELLY fans were left fuming after BBC bosses changed the ending of Charles Dickens classic Great Expectations – branding the latest adaptation pure "rubbish."
Literary lovers and BBC viewers alike were up in arms about the plot twist in the final scenes which saw Miss Haversham choose to burn her own wedding dress – instead of it being unexpectedly set alight.
Yet the Great Expectations tweaks didn't stop there.
Instead of perishing in the flames, the eccentric elderly character – played by Olivia Colman, 49 – actually survives and is in fact the instigator of her own revenge plot.
It saw the character warn protagonist Pip: "Your education is complete," which prompted one fan to muse how the bizarre twist had seen spinster Miss Haversham go "full Arnold Schwarzenegger."
Understandably this led to a slew of criticism centred on the changes to the British author's 1860 tome.
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One viewer took to Twitter to rage of the six-part series: "What an abomination? The only way to describe the BBC's Great Expectations.
"The last episode they even changed the ending. Why? Why? Why?
"Total rubbish."
Another added: "Stuck with #GreatExpectations to the end. God knows why. It’s absolutely incredible how they f**ked it up so badly. Terrible. One remake too far."
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A third then ranted: "Speechless at the end of #GreatExpectations. What a load of cobblers. Ending totally rewritten, never mind the rest of it."
One questioned: "Haven’t they completely changed the end? Or am I’m going barmy."
Others were more muted in their distaste, with one commenting: "Interesting end to #GreatExpectations but call me boring but I still prefer the original proper Dickens version."
These followed initial comments about the character, who had been unexpectedly portrayed as an opium addict from the opening episode.
Previously, series writer Steven Knight, of Peaky Blinders fame, announced he’d tried to “liberate” Dickens from his 19th Century political constraints and imagine what “he’d have written now."
He said: "It's everyone's right to react in the way they want to react. But I would say that the book exists, it is still there.
"This is not an attempt to say the book is wrong or this is better."
Even before the first episode dropped it prompted Sky News host Rowan Dean to say: "What a joke" about such changes, while Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Common Sense Group of MPs said: "The trend amongst clueless politically correct zealots is to b*****dise the great canon of English literature either by vulgarising it in this way or sanitising it."
Yet many viewers admitted to turning off the first episode which aired back in March.
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