There's still a lot to like in this show if, that is, you are willing to throw credibility out the window. Like most soaps, the writers pour on the drama, but at times they don't just pour on the drama, they drown you with it. Think of anything that could happen to one family and it will happen to these poor Blighs -- and anyone else who happens to enter their orbit. What redeems the show is the good cinematography and period costumes and, for a soap, some occasional, terrific acting. Elizabeth is excellent, as are Jack, George, Carolyn, and Sarah, who basically carries the show. However, some of the men and and the women who play the younger generation aren't up to the task -- Harry and Henry are both good, but not James, Anna, and, worst or all, Olivia, who is either a very bad actress or is just stuck playing an unredeemable stock soap opera part (the eternally perky, always terribly concerned victim). Still, if you're looking for completely mindless entertainment, and willing to put up with more dastardly deeds that Mrs. Fletcher ever found in Cabot Cove, it's certainly worth a look -- and, of course, you can also look at all the young men who sport 2020 gym bodies and take their shirts off every opportunity they can. (One odd detail: the actors' accents all seem to switch back and forth from Australian to English to neither, or both. Very strange.)
