I love a lot of historical TV shows! Unfortunately, they're mainly also historical themselves, being from the 70s/80s.
In modern times, I also love North & South (and many other classic lit adaptations), The Hour, Ripper Street, and for candyfloss value (they're both very pretty) Victoria and Downton Abbey.
I also enjoyed HBO's Rome when I finally watched it a couple of years ago.
Otherwise I really do love the old-style BBC stuff that's theatrical and unafraid of being historically accurate or ambiguous and ironic and am hugely fond of:
Enemy at the Door (ITV 1978-80 serial on the occupation of the Channel Islands in WWII)
Duchess of Duke Street (1970s BBC drama with Gemma Jones running an Edwardian hotel)
The House of Eliott (1990s BBC drama about two sisters setting up a fashion house that was on when I was a teen and I still love)
Poldark (1970s version, as I fell grudgingly but badly in love with Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees; I watch the new one but have extremely mixed feelings about some of its decisions, although it wins on the Best Aunt Agatha front at least)
The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R (landmark BBC Tudor dramas; Eliz R features Glenda Jackson being amazing)
and also The Shadow of the Tower which was technically the BBC prequel to the above, about Henry VII, but is far cheaper, weirder and random, and so is of course my favourite.
Oh, and The Onedin Line, which I watched half of on TV lately (BBC 1970s Shipping line shenanigans, it's great because it's set in Liverpool but filmed somewhere quiet in Devon which also doubles up for everywhere else in the world, but it has a brilliant marriage-of-convenience couple at the centre of the first 2 series).
And more, like WWII dramas, Wish me Luck, Tenko and Manhunt and probably others. Also the BBC Shakespeare.
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In modern times, I also love North & South (and many other classic lit adaptations), The Hour, Ripper Street, and for candyfloss value (they're both very pretty) Victoria and Downton Abbey.
I also enjoyed HBO's Rome when I finally watched it a couple of years ago.
Otherwise I really do love the old-style BBC stuff that's theatrical and unafraid of being historically accurate or ambiguous and ironic and am hugely fond of:
Enemy at the Door (ITV 1978-80 serial on the occupation of the Channel Islands in WWII)
Duchess of Duke Street (1970s BBC drama with Gemma Jones running an Edwardian hotel)
The House of Eliott (1990s BBC drama about two sisters setting up a fashion house that was on when I was a teen and I still love)
Poldark (1970s version, as I fell grudgingly but badly in love with Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees; I watch the new one but have extremely mixed feelings about some of its decisions, although it wins on the Best Aunt Agatha front at least)
The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R (landmark BBC Tudor dramas; Eliz R features Glenda Jackson being amazing)
and also The Shadow of the Tower which was technically the BBC prequel to the above, about Henry VII, but is far cheaper, weirder and random, and so is of course my favourite.
Oh, and The Onedin Line, which I watched half of on TV lately (BBC 1970s Shipping line shenanigans, it's great because it's set in Liverpool but filmed somewhere quiet in Devon which also doubles up for everywhere else in the world, but it has a brilliant marriage-of-convenience couple at the centre of the first 2 series).
And more, like WWII dramas, Wish me Luck, Tenko and Manhunt and probably others. Also the BBC Shakespeare.