Sujata Subramanian

Watched 20 minutes of the first episode and wanted to throw something at my TV. Dreadful acting, completely untrue to the period - I just hate what they've done to a beloved book.

Absolutely the best in it's genre and one of the best TV shows I've ever seen. The characters are all extremely complex and well-drawn, the acting impeccable and the stories gripping. I just might have to watch the whole series a third time!

I really don't understand the rave reviews for this show. From a historical perspective, it's complete drivel. It whitewashes cruel colonial truths by pretending there was a even a possibility that people of color could have held positions of power in colonial Britain. The myth that Queen Charlotte was a person of color was itself born of racism. As someone else has said in a review here, having a diverse cast is wonderful - it does not require a historical untruth to explain it. Add to that uneven dialogue that switches back and forth between somewhat archaic sounding and completely modern language, and over-the-top mediocre acting, this strikes me as being quite simply a very lazy production.