The first two episodes effectively set up the larger conflict that’s brewing, but they also revel in the colorful cast.

It sometimes feels structured more like a British soap opera than a prestige-TV miniseries. But it’s fun nevertheless to engage with the characters of Harlots, who are vividly written, outspoken, and frank.

It’s a bawdy, funny, gritty, and at times moving drama that flies in the face most of the period costume dramas we’ve seen on TV over the years.

Shocking and fascinating, Harlots will keep you watching not for the sex and nudity but for the women trying not to sell their souls along with their bodies.

Harlots tends to teeter between being a lark and a social tract. The flesh is willing throughout, but the structure can be a little weak. Still, this is a decidedly different and bracing look at ye olde England, with power struggles aplenty as women strive to assert themselves while men mostly just want to insert themselves.

An engaging new period melodrama.

There’s a hesitancy to confront the thicket of conflicting emotions that are being hinted at underneath the not-so-charmed life of the Wells girls and the women they work with (or against) but the origins and the precariousness of these feelings never quite explored with any daring or seriousness. ...There is the constant use of the titular term, which rips you out of the action without care whenever it’s hurled about, but that’s not half as annoying as the music.

A ripping good period drama that combines the exuberant depravity of 18th-century pornography (remember MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE?) with a more sober-sided look at the costs of sex-for-hire. Great casting, especially Lesley Manville and Samantha Morton as rival madams, great sets, great costumes, hair, and makeup. I wrote a longer review but lost it when I tried to fix a spelling mistake, so let me summarize by giving it a thumbs-up. Or perhaps a #@#$%-up?

Great start to a pretty different period drama about the bawdy side of London in the 18th century. An excellent cast and solid writing along with superb sets ensure a gripping series.

Sub-standard, at times awful show. Acting is poor, music is bad, realism is not there and writing and camera is average at best. London and its streets are far too clean for the year 1763 but almost every person is trash or "unlearning" to be like trash. It seems that London and its different classes are the same, apart from wearing different clothing. Few people who actually are educated or well mannered? That is unfair towards most lower and middle class people and towards some upper class people as well considering years after years of lenghty upbringing at the time. The " harlot" parts are there, even numerous, but also fail in their intended effect: a cheap shot or suggestion every few minutes which does not trigger anything. So, if you expect some easy, straight out of its convenience bag snack TV with costumes on, go watch it. For me, I wish I had stopped after episode 1 but I continued to torture myself for 5 episodes more. Comparing a show like this with perhaps Black Sails (which is set about 40 years earlier, not exactly the same period, but fairly close) can hardly be done. Black Sails laughs at Harlots: much better acting, better music, more realistic and superior camera and writing.

Dreadful acting, vacuous script, the clothes are just too clean, the whites are white. The characters faces are clean and clear of disease, along with their hands, even the trash in the street is clean. During this time period decades of dirt built up in the streets and the smell was horrendous, all day every day. Pointless faux sex, all over the place and as believable, as the modern day music, out of place and just plain bad. A second season? Don;t make me laugh.

Another show about women where they are either screeching or Victims. Or both. Lots of sex, all of it ugly and distasteful. I can hear the critics glowing about it, even though it's just another melodrama. A soap. With nice costumes stuffed with hackneyed stereotypes. Not anything to see. Move along.