Belgravia – The Next Chapter

Taking place some 30 years after the first chapter, this focuses on Lord Frederick Trenchard, estranged from his family, ambitious and driven to succeed by his unhappy childhood. He marries the beautiful Clara Dunn, but his emotional repression and crippling self-doubt make the marriage unlikely to succeed. Social unrest, sexuality, the status of women, rampant capitalism, Bloomsbury culture, exploitation, mental illness – much is crammed into the six episodes of this mid-Victorian era soap. There is little mention and no appearance of the main characters from the first series, many of whom have conveniently died at an early age, which is odd as you would expect some contact from cousins. A rather saccharine ending strikes an odd disconnect with the fairly grim tone of most of the series. If there is to be a third chapter, hopefully the writers can make better connections between the eras and the characters.