YMMV / Nicholas Nickleby

• Awesome Music:
  • The 2001 version has some great music.
  • The RSC stage production also has plenty of examples.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The stories of "Five Sisters of York" and "The Baron of Grogzwig" told by the gentlemen accompanying Nicholas on his way to Yorkshire serve no purpose to the story other than to pass the time while they wait for another coach, and they leave by the end of the chapter, without any further mention of them throughout the rest of the story.
• Catharsis Factor: Seeing Nicholas giving Wackford Squeers and Sir Mulberry Hawk a taste of their own medicine is an absolute pleasure to read about.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: John Browdie, The Cheeryble Brothers, Newman Noggs, and the Crummeles.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Pam Ferris (Mrs. Squeers in the 2001 miniseries) played Mrs. Boffin — a character who couldn't be more different from Mrs. Squeers — in Our Mutual Friend (1998). She went on to appear in a third Dickens adaptation, as Mrs. General — another very un-Squeers-like character — in Little Dorrit (2008).
  • Also from the 1998 Our Mutual Friend miniseries: Timothy Spall and David Bradley (Mr. Venus and Riderhood) appear in the 2002 film as Charles Cheeryble and Mr. Bray.
  • Tom Courtenay (Noggs in the 2002 film) went on to play William Dorrit in Little Dorrit (2008).
  • Charles Dance (Ralph in the 2001 miniseries) and Phil Davis (Brooker in the 2002 film) both played in Bleak House (2005), as Mr. Tulkinghorn and Mr. Smallweed.
  • Dominic West, who played Sir Mulberry Hawk in the 2001 version, played Fred, who is the complete opposite of Sir Mulberry Hawk in personality, in the 1999 version of A Christmas Carol.
  • Another Bleak House-related example: Donald Sumpter (Nemo in the 1985 miniseries) played Brooker in the 2001 version of Nicholas Nickleby.
• Ho Yay: Nicholas and Smike, the mentally handicapped orphan he meets at Dotheboys Hall and later rescues. Averted once you go back through the story with the knowledge that they're cousins.
  Nicholas: My heart is linked to yours.
• Les Yay: Madeline initially has "a warmer feeling" for Kate than for Nicholas; it's implied that she mainly falls for him because of his resemblance to his sister.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Wackford Squeers was never a pleasant person to begin with due to how he and his family run Dotheboys Hall like a prison, but he really crosses the line when he starts flogging Smike, a crippled boy, simply for running away, to within an inch of his life. It was from this point on that he deserved what's coming to him.
  • Sir Mulberry Hawk crosses this when he attempts to force himself upon Kate, who is still quite a young girl (even attempting to rape her in the stage adaptation), and keeps on going when he attempts to humiliate her simply for refusing his advances. And if that wasn't enough, after Nicholas attacks him for it, he implies that he will murder him for his humiliation as part of his revenge, which he also plans to extend it to Kate, whom he was pursuing in the first place. Killing his former friend Lord Frederick Verisopht was just icing on his ruthless cake from that point onward.
• Narm: The 2001 version has Newman Noggs punch the air, imagining he's punching Ralph Nickleby. Unfortunately, it ends up looking... rather silly.
• Retroactive Recognition: In the 2001 version, one of Sir Mulberry Hawk's friends (either Pyke or Pluck; they aren't named in the adaptation) is a very young Loki.

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