"It's perfectly simple, Evie. Father has left us nothing but the house and a stack of bills." - Beatrice Eliott (Stella Gonet) upon learning the true value of her deceased father's estate
The House of Eliott: Series One DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
In 1971, Upstairs, Downstairs premiered on British TV. Created by actors Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh, the series told the stories of both the Bellamy family, a well-to-do clan living in early twentieth century England, and the servants hired to take care of their luxurious home. When the series aired on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre in 1974, it created an immediate sensation in the US. Viewers soon became hooked on its superior production values and its well-balanced look at elite "upstairs" life and lower class "downstairs" life. The series ran for five seasons and is estimated to have been seen by over one billion viewers worldwide. In 1991, Atkins and Marsh created The House of Eliott, another series that contrasted the lives of the upper and lower classes. This was no mere copy of their original hit, however. This time, the focus is on a formerly rich and sheltered family that has fallen on hard times.
Beatrice (Stella Gonet) and Evangeline Eliott (C.S.I.'s Louise Lombard) lead sheltered lives. Their mother died while giving birth to Evie in 1902, and Beatrice, twelve at the time, was charged with taking care of her new sister. Their father, a disagreeable fellow, kept the sisters at close reign. The House of Eliott begins in 1921, with the unexpected death of their father. The sisters are sad, of course, but also thrilled. While their father was a successful doctor, he was also miserly and stubborn. With his death, the sisters will be free to use their inheritance to travel, pursue their educations, and enjoy freedom for the first time.
Then reality sets in. Bea and Evie learn from their cousin Arthur (Peter Birch), the estate's executor, that their father was nearly broke. The home in which they grew up is to be theirs, but they now have barely enough money to keep it open. And their father has, rather insultingly, given Arthur - who is no older than Bea - guardianship of Evie. The sisters will now be forced to find jobs - and sell their beloved home - in order to survive. Bea is hired on as office manager by the dashing society photographer Jack Maddox (Touching Evil's Aden Gillett) while Evie becomes a seamstress for a fashion designer. When it becomes obvious that Evie possesses real artistic and design talent, the sisters decide to make a go of their own seamstress business. Their work is so well-respected that the duo soon opens their own design house, The House of Eliott. Their dreams seem to be coming true at last, but scandal, deception, quarrels, and ill will threaten them at every turn.
For fans of British drama, The House of Eliott will prove to be absolutely irresistible. The series is a perfect blend of soap and tony drama. It is as literate as such classics as The Forsyte Saga, with each episode feeling like an immensely satisfying chapter from a solid novel. This is even more impressive when taking into consideration that The Forsyte Saga was adapted from an especially rich novel while The House of Eliott just seems like it was.
The characters are so finely drawn that they seem instantly familiar. And while the cast isn't starry, the series is filled with uniformly terrific performances. Gonet and Lombard are nearly perfect. Gonet's Bea is coolly mature without being overly serious. Lombard's Evie possesses both starry-eyed innocence and steely ambition. As their disapproving Aunt Lydia, Barbara Jefford delivers a sympathetic performance that shows us the pain behind her haughtiness. The cast of characters is sprawling, but it is to the actors' credit that, for the most part, it is easy to keep track of who's who.
The series features nearly impeccable production values. Much care and effort obviously went into the creation of the show's fashions. These lush looks don't always carry over into the scenic design. The location shots are faultless and nearly all of the studio sets look fine. A few, however, were obviously rendered on the cheap and come across as chintzy theatre sets that were never meant to be seen up close.
Series One of The House of Eliott is by no means perfect. The pacing in the first half of the season is a tad slow, but these episodes also feel as if they are more carefully thought out than those that follow. And while the first series covers a span of several years, it isn't totally successful at portraying the passage of time. This also contributes to a seemingly too-abrupt rift between the sisters toward the end of the season, and an equally abrupt reconciliation.
The House of Eliott has one other flaw: it is oddly difficult to make the series sound as interesting as it is. Start talking about fashion houses run by perky British women struggling to survive in the 1920s and most peoples' eyes will immediately begin to glaze over. But you'll just have to trust me on this one. Apart from discussions of bias cuts and arguments about what customers will find fashionable, Eliott isn't really about fashion, just as Dallas isn't really about oil. It's about secrets and romance, dramatic turns and tragic accidents. And while the final episode brings the first series to a satisfying conclusion, viewers will surely be left hoping that Series Two won't arrive fashionably late to DVD.
The twelve episodes that make up The House of Eliott: Series One are divided onto four discs. The discs are housed in four thin keepcases which slide into a cardboard slipcover. The back of each keepcase includes brief synopses of the episodes found on the DVDs. The synopses don't give away any major plot points, but they reveal enough that viewers may still want to avoid reading them until after watching the episodes.
The menus are simple and functional. Viewers can choose to watch an entire episode or can jump directly to a scene using the "Scene Selection" menu.
