'Belgravia' Premieres With a Long Flashback

Belgravia, the scandalously soapy new period drama from Julian Fellowes, is not Downton Abbey. This new series is very different in both style, tone, and time period. Its first episode is a slow build, of which over half is framed as a flashback, with a laundry list of characters whose names are difficult to learn and remember. And though it is titled Belgravia, the show lacks the sense of place that immediately resonates throughout Downton. This drama was primarily driven by the idea that no matter how much the world around it might change, that house would go on forever.

All of this, of course, is meant as a warning to temper your expectations accordingly. Initially, Belgravia is hard to get into, and its first hour serves almost entirely as a set-up for the series of following episodes. But by the time you get to the end of this initial installment, you’ll be in this for the long haul. True, it’s possible you won’t wish happiness for most of these people – almost all of them are pretty much openly terrible, and the one who isn’t, dies – but their story is wildly addictive to watch.

At least, it is once we get past the boring party in the past, a stolid, darkly lit twenty minutes of class snobbery that gives us the doomed, illicit romance that drives the rest of the story. It’s Brussels in 1915, the very eve of the Battle of Waterloo, and our story focuses on an up-and-coming merchant couple known as the Trenchards. Everyone refers to them very deliberately as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” all the time, so you know immediately that they’re basically calling them trash, a pair of strivers rising above their station on the back of the husband James’ almost magically successful ability to procure supplies for the military.