Based on a true story, Aristocrats draws back the curtain on an 18th century English family near the summit of society, revealing a tapestry of romance, prejudice, infidelity, and revolution.
Caution: there are vague but minor spoilers her if you have not seen it. My wife and I have so much British television lined up to watch that we can be a tough audience sometimes. But as this series started out, it held our attention just fine. The core family of sisters held my interest and I cared about what happened to them. You can't ask for more than that. I rank the first three episodes fairly highly.
My interest in the story started to slip during the fourth and fifth installments, and I wasn't even sure why as I watched it. Now I think that part of it was that I couldn't understand exactly why one of the sisters was suddenly interested in married men. I mean, I know it happens, but she admits at some point she doesn't love them, so why? Still, I wasn't tempted to give it up.
The sixth and final episode was even more of a disappointment for me. It felt like the entire tone and perspective of the series had shifted. I realize that characters had died and others had aged, so no doubt that played into it. But the aging seemed so sudden that it felt like more years had gone by than what I thought. The shift to focus on the younger generation seemed abrupt. About then I also realized that the reason I had felt my interest slide in the previous episode was that I had lost track of the timeline. Who was the country fighting: The colonies still, Ireland? I wasn't well-grounded in the timeline any more.
Anyway, despite the disappointing finale, I do not regret watching it. It was a pretty good period piece and from an interesting angle - not just wealthy people, but the beautiful people, Royalty, celebrities of their day.
