I don’t know how far back we’re allowed to go. I’ll second the recommendations of Wolf Hall and Brideshead Revisited.
If time isn’t a factor, then there’s a lot of great Masterpiece Theater/BBC type stuff, particularly the 1980 Pride and Prejudice and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and the 2005 Bleak House.
What I consider the greatest fictional and nonfictional TV shows of all time, respectively, both aired on PBS at some point: I, Claudius and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
I can’t be the only one that watched Keeping up Appearances
Poirot is worthwhile. David Suchet owns that role.
I, Claudius was great, and had some amazing performances, but its production values left something to be desired. It looked like an old-school videotaped soap opera–more like a televised play than anything else. If only it had had the budget of HBO’s Rome…
Production values were bare-bones, but that vanishes into irrelevancy for me next to the writing and acting, which is miles beyond Rome (itself a fine show, with first-rate production design as you say).
Agreed. I Claudius was a fantastic show with super-crappy sets. Looked like a high school play, but the acting and writing were great.
My local PBS station used to just do BBC shows on Sunday, although they did British comedies on Friday nights. I see now they are doing them all night Thursday’s and part of Wednesday’s.
What do I watch on PBS? Frontline mostly, Nova depending on the topic and often whatever is on the American Masterpiece series (is that what it is called?).
I don’t know where to put this, but since we were discussing Wolf Hall here