Non-masterpiece for Masterpiece PBS
I waited until I saw the entire 8 parts of this before commenting.Here is how to make a terrible TV production. Have the lead role so badly miscast and add horrible writing. Dump into a pot of another Edwardian period England stew, sift in a large supporting cast of upper elites and lower classes, and you have a too familiar and predictable over-long series that is just plain boring in the end.
Piven could not give a worse performance of pearly white teeth smiles and forced grimaces and stock method pouting. He is not just in the wrong show, the scripts are just terrible for his part. Ditto for his "family".
The most interesting parts of this series, end up belonging to the shop working class employees (just like in the original Upstairs,Downstairs where the "family" that toiled below stairs were the people who won our hearts most.)
If only the producers of this show had left well enough alone.
Another problem with these modern "period" productions: too much music (they call it "dramatic underscore"--OK, but why so much of it? Ironically, the music for the series was the only Emmy award nomination for 2013. No acting nominations, none for art direction, nor costumes etc. Just the music. That tells a lot what the Emmy judges thought of this, and no surprise.
Other problems (besides using too many vernacular idioms script-wise), is the continual reliance on gimmickry camera shots, and wild moving camera swings around the interior set of the store, quick little fast-edited reactions shots and short little snipped scenes of dialogue--the overall effect is dizzying and annoyingly distracting. Why can't they just shoot a scene as a normal scene without all the gimmicks and shaky camera effects and once again, without all the background music??
And there will be a second season. That is sad,sad,sad. Shame on the producers of Masterpiece for feeding us tripe and promising more to come. Sad,sad,sad.
score 1/10
brtor222 18 July 2013
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2833995/14540
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