Ann Donahue

The plot of the BritBox version is truly insane, apparently much like the book, and it’s only thanks to the solid, empathetic performance of John Simm (“Trauma,” “Dr. Who”) as Grace that things don’t go totally off the rails.

Something truly special. ... This is all captivating for both adults and kids.

“Dancing with the Devil” needs to let Lovato’s story breathe, expand, and settle. The singer has obviously done a tremendous amount of work to get to a place where she can be so forthright, and the cause and the effect of this bravery can’t be summarized in less than two hours.

Like the entire plot of “The Luminaries,” everything in this opening scene is overstuffed and hard to discern.

Where the series goes horribly, offensively awry is in the lurid packaging of the very solid interviews with the police, journalists, surviving victims, and families. Real crime-scene photos are used throughout the series, a choice that is profoundly upsetting but necessary to illustrate the animalistic horror.

For the time being, the fizzy fun and exuberant look of the series wins audiences over despite the narrative overcomplexity, even for those who can’t tell the three eldest good-looking twenty-something brunette white guy Bridgerton brothers apart for the first several episodes.

That it lands so directly is credit to the performances of the nine actors at the center of the show: Sarah Pidgeon, Sophia Ali, Jenna Clause, Erana James, Mia Healey, Helena Howard, Reign Edwards, Shannon Berry, and Chi Nguyen.

Colman is now allowed to own the monarch’s authority in her performance. And with foils like Anderson and Corrin, all three turn in very brittle and beautiful performances. ... Beyond reveling in the tawdry candy-colored tale of Charles and Di, Morgan’s writing on the show routinely explores notions of classicism, privilege, sexism, and racism. But this time around, the undercurrents surface in a way that is timely, incisive, and, ultimately, more pointed and hopeful.

It’s a compassionate telling, one that teeters on the right side of empathy for a heinous convicted killer who was, also, a broken woman.

One of the chief selling points of ‘Downton’s” early seasons was how it tread the fine line between soap opera and prestige drama. “Belgravia” errs on the wrong side of that divide, but it is so well-appointed that it is never less than beautiful to watch, just like “Downton.” For some, the finery will win out over refinement.