Amazon Prime Dickens, Austen, and all of our Favorites

We love the classics and all things British - so much so that we have a subscription for Acorn television. Our main purpose for having it is to see all the Midsomer Murders as well as other great television programming. But since we have Amazon Prime Video, there is even more opportunity to see our favorite classics from Dickens to Austen. It will be sad when we run through them all. Many of the shows we like are all the Masterpiece series we watched while living in the Midwest thirty years before we moved here twelve years ago. But there is a great assortment to select from -  Bleak House, The Way We Live Now, Daniel Deronda, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Tess if the D’Urbervilles, Lorna Doone, Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, Cranford, Emma, Lark Rise to Candleford, Upstairs/Downstairs, Dombey and Son, Under the Greenwood Tree, Little Dorrit, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Our Mutual Friend, Hard Times, David Copperfield, Silas Mariner.... there are just a handful we didn’t like. It feels like meeting old friends - we saw them long ago and recognize many of the actors now from their early roles. We’ve tried a few of the newer series and get very disappointed with the storylines and the acting! Some of the original programming is okay but there is something about spending time with our old friends. So now there is no excuse not to find something entertaining to watch among Comcast/Xfinity, Amazon Orime Video, and Acorn TV. But it sure is getting confusing to figure out how to make the most of all of it. 

Anthony Trollope Doctor Thorn, Julian Fellowes, and Amazon Prime Video

We love Masterpiece Theatre. I’ve been watching it since there was a story about Henry VIII and his wives. We look forward to all the British programs and with Comcast, we DVR and put in to the queue any Masterpiece show. Since we got Apple TV, we also got a year subscription to Acorn TV. So we watch even more British programs. Now, since we decided Amazon Prime membership fit our lifestyle, we are also using it to find even more of our past favorites like “Pride and Prejudice,” but also are on the look out for any new shows. We loved a “Very British Scandal” with Hugh Grant. I came across a series entitled “Doctor Thorne” by Anthony Trollope. I knew it would be good not only because of the story, but also because Julian Fellowes wrote it for TV - and who didn’t love Downton Abbey? So we watched the four episodes over two nights. Julian Fellowes introduced the show and summarized the story line at the end of each episode. It was like watching Alistair Cooke and Russell Baker all over again. Of course, “Doctor Thorne” was not a disappointment. It’s going to be hard to move us off the couch with such great shows. We rarely watch any regular television programming any more. Why would you with all these wonderful alternatives?