In discussing adapting the Boris Pasternak novel for television, screenwriter Andrew Davies revealed the task was "daunting because the book is reckoned to be a masterpiece and the film is a great movie and one that I admire very much. Robert Bolt is the king of epic screenplay writers in my book. But as I got further into the book I kept thinking that I didn't agree with Robert Bolt about how to tell the story... and I began to feel much more excited." He added, "It was also a relief to find so much in the book that hadn't found its way into the first movie and could make great drama... I thought the film does the spectacle really well. Rather surprisingly, it also explains the politics very well, but I thought it could do a better job on the relationships. It's probably a bit controversial, but I thought we could say more about Lara and Yuri and how they get together; about Lara's extraordinary situation at the beginning of the story and Yuri having a dreadful start to his life with his parents dying. None of these things really came out in the movie, but they are there in the book. I think that if they look at both versions now, people will probably think that this version in a lot of ways works better for our time. It's more contemporary. I think they'll find the performances are more subtle yet speak to us in our time. Maybe my script will seem out of date in 20 years time because a lot of them do, but watching the original film, I think the central performances look stilted and dated now."