Review by Sabalon

I have never watched any of the crop of "reality" tv shows because none of them seem realistic, or worth watching. This show (called Manor House on PBS in the US) was some of the more entertaining 6 hours of TV I've seen in a while. The idea is to try and take modern people and have them live as they did in the start of the 20th century - the family in the house, and their servants. Since they didn't really want to replace people mid-show, some of the strict rules of conduct of that period were not as enforced as strongly as they would have been - ie. people didn't get sacked when they should have.

The show gave an insight as to how appreciative the "servants" are of the way society changed in the 20th century...especially two of the cast members who had relatives who were in service like this.

My only real complaint was that they seemed to repeat things from episode to episode to make sure you understood something. Watching the whole thing over three nights made this redundant commentary annoying. I would have prefered to have seen more interaction between the family and the head servants, and between the servants than the constant voice over about the duties and shots of people working.

Watching this also changes the way you watch Gosford Park.