Aristocrats

Super series for anyone interested in the history of the period of enlightenment. Read the book for a better insight.

The Second Duke of Richmond is played by Julian Fellows. The format and the music seem so redolent of Downton Abbey. Anyone else see it as a forerunner of Fellow"s Downton?

I'm surprised Fellows didn't tack a raft of mini series onto The Aristocrats. The Lennox offspring, legitimate and otherwise, weave through much of British and overseas history, which now, sadly, has abruptly ended with Brexit and the demise of an entire nation.

Based on a true story, Aristocrats follows an English aristocratic family, who claims royal blood and status via Charles II bastard lineage. The convoluted time-line in fits and starts, takes place prior to the American Revolution on through to the Irish uprising in 1798.

The story starts out interestingly enough, but at about part 3 of 6 you begin to wonder if there is a point to the story. The last 3 parts are simply depressing. More than anything, the time-line begins to rapidly fly by without any specific storyline accountability nor historical grounding. The casting is odd in general. In particular, as the characters age, the casting changes are really horrible choices that offer no consistency or context of character and plot.

If you've nothing else, you may find this a mild diversion. But all in all, this doesn't measure up to the BBC's standards.

I found this on freevee. I give these things about 30 minutes and, if I am not captured, I move on. This captured me pretty quickly. Basically it is the life and loves of 4 (well maybe 5) sisters. The first 4 episodes work very well with basically just about every sister meeting their husband and getting married. Each "love story" is interesting and enjoyable.

For me the problem starts around episode 4 as we focus on Lady Mary. We have two problems. The actress (Jodi May) just doesn't work here. She is lacking any charisma. She also doesn't fit into her costumes properly. It is really noticeable. Her plot line is also terrible. Makes the character come off as an absolute idiot that I am supposed to feel bad for. Then a main character passes away and there is absolutely no effects to anyone else? Seems like perhaps something got cut?

From here the show starts going off the rails with big mistakes and things that just make the viewer go, huh?

Overall though.. still good enough to watch.

I had a problem with this production -- it didn't know what it wanted to be. Was it a faithful account of a true story or was it a Goergian soap opera with harlequin romance cover bedroom scenes? The worst problem was the inconsistency - the period drama with the social commentary was dropped by the end of the series, which had turned into a story of political intrigue, involving characters we knew little about.

I enjoyed the series but did not love it. The first two episodes that I thought were going to set the tone for the balance of the series, turned out to have little to do with the rest of the storyline. After the first two episodes, the series became less focused with too many characters and little impact on the storyline.

I am sure the book is much better and on a positive, this series does encourage me to go out and read more about these sisters and what really happened. This film was a great introduction to the story but it was far from satisfying.

As another reviewer noted, there are so many children that it is very difficult to keep up with who is who, and this problem increases as the series moves on... Also, although every series that purports to show time passing has to deal with making the actors age, in this one, the oldest daughter looks exactly the same after about 20 years!

The costumes and settings are certainly BBC-worthy, although as a Yank I could not tell if they are accurate or not.

The plots are also confusing, but that is party because the English history of that era was pretty complicated, with the factions, and uprisings, etc.