Julian Fellowes Presents Doctor Thorne

Mr. Fellowes emphasizes Trollope’s humor without shortchanging the melodrama, and the production has the feeling of a high-def tribute to an earlier era of British film and television (emphasized by the use of old-fashioned fonts for the credits)--it achieves a kind of rollicking serenity.

The fun part is how well Doctor Thorne’s various messages translate over a century later: how societal slights still hurt, unloved offspring still feel unloved, and star-crossed lovers always manage to find their way back to each other.

McShane might be the best part of this production, bringing life to the role of a man harboring dark regrets. ... Oh, yes, the period costumes and the locations are top-notch. After a jaunt around Greshambury, even the Crawleys would be feeling house-poor.

A perfectly serviceable, occasionally adorable, utterly predictable period drama.

Even when the plot gets a bit muddled, it all goes down easily, with elaborate gowns on the women, beautiful furnishings in elegant rooms, and rolling green fields to keep us diverted even as we're wondering who that gentleman or that lady is related to. The cast is hit-and-miss.

The opening and closing remarks provided by Fellowes for each episode betray more wit than he was able to evince in the scripts.

While Trollope’s writing is filled with morally complicated creatures, the miniseries’ characters too often are monolithic types, mostly devoid of nuance.