Stream It Or Skip It?

In a new BritBox drama, six sisters in an aristocratic London family in the 1930s go against their upbringing and the expectations both their parents and the society scene have for them. Despite the story taking place over 90 years ago, it feels very modern, and not just because it has a modern soundtrack and witty graphics on the screen.

OUTRAGEOUS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The camera pans to a photograph on a desk. “It captures my family, like flies in amber,” says the voice of Nancy Mitford (Bessie Carter).

The Gist: Bessie is the oldest of the Mitford sisters — her five sisters are Pamela (Isobel Jesper Jones), Diana (Joanna Vanderham), Unity (Shannon Watson), Jessica (Zoe Brough) and Deborah (Orla Hill). The six of them and their barrister brother Tom (Toby Regbo), are the kids of their “Farve”, David Freeman-Mitford (James Purefoy) aka the Baron of Redesdale, and “Muv”, Sydney Bowles (Anna Chancellor). They live on an Oxfordshire estate that has been in their family for centuries, but the family is also firmly a part of London’s wealthy society scene.

But it’s the early 1930s, and all of the Mitford sisters are bucking against the traditions of their society upbringing, especially the notion of particular gender roles. Jessica, for instance, wants to go to university, but is upbraided by her father: “School is for boys. Understood?” Farve tells his daughter as the six sisters eat breakfast with their parents.

Nancy has been dating Hamish Erskine (James Musgrave) for four years, and while she thinks it’s the perfect time to get married, Hamish thinks otherwise. Her best friend Joss (Will Attenborough) tells her that English men are very shy about sex, and that she must initiate without being too adamant about it. That is, of course, if Hamish isn’t “a fan of Oscar Wilde.”

Diana is married to Bryan Guinness (Calam Lynch) — yes, he’s from that Guinness family — but she feels stifled in the relationship, especially since having their first child. But she’s enamored with Oswald Mosley (Joshua Sasse), who is running for Parliament while espousing a fascist political platform. Mosley, who is also married but is a noted womanizer, returns that attraction.

While the Mitford family is having some financial issues, which leads Farve to try to rent out their London residence, Unity’s coming out party is still a go. Not that anyone got any input from Unity herself; she has no interest in being married off to the “chinless” men of London’s society world. Jessica sees protestors outside their London mansion, trying to get more services for the poor and hungry, and thinks she might have found a cause to get behind.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Outrageous, written by Sarah Williams and based on Mary S. Lovell’s biography The Mitford Girls, reminds us a bit of other shows about women who went against the gender roles of their time period, like The Buccaneers.

Our Take: One of the things that concerned us as we watched the first few minutes of Outrageous was that we weren’t going to be able to keep track of the Mitford sisters, given how many of them there are. Not that we expected Williams to be able to give every one of the sisters their own stories in the first 44-minute episode, but there does sometimes seem to be a tendency in period shows like this to give some characters a lot more personality than others.

This is why we were impressed that by the end of the first episode, we had a pretty good handle on at least four of the six sisters, with a few clues here and there about the personalities of the remaining two. The idea is that all six Mitford women are their own people, in some fashion or another, and are not buying into the century-old traditions of aristocratic London society. Given how England and the world at large are going to go through some violent changes throughout the 1930s, the Mitford sisters’ determination to live lives that they have control of will likely become more explosive as the decade goes on.

One of the reasons why each sister is distinctive because the women in those roles is trying to give each of their characters their own quirks, hopes and dreams. That seems obvious, but it isn’t always executed well. But we definitely know that, Carter’s Nancy is kicking herself for spending her latter 20s with Hamish, especially after he springs on her the news that he’s moving to the U.S. Diana is picking passion over safety, something that characters in her position in other shows couldn’t do, because during their time periods, that was unheard of.

What we hope is that the six episodes of the limited series is enough to give all six sisters meaty story elements to explore.

Sex and Skin: None, though Nancy tries mightily with Hamish right before he tells her that he’s moving.

Parting Shot: “Hell would indeed break loose; not just for my family, but for the world,” says Nancy in voice over as she watches Diana and Bryan dance what might be their last dance as a couple.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Shannon Watson as Unity, mainly because her character went to her coming out party with her pet rat in her purse.

Most Pilot-y Line: None we could find.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Outrageous is a well-paced examination of a family who went against the grain during an explosive period in England’s history.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.