Best TV Period Drama Revealed

The results of our latest weekly poll – to find the Best TV  Period Drama – are in so its time to find out which series, from our selection, you rated above the rest.

This past week you have been voting for the drama you think out of the period genre is the best. We had 12 to choose from and all of them in there own right are memorable and worthy winners – but only one of them could be crowned by you as the best of the bunch. So which show was it? Which drama did you rate above all the others? Well perhaps the winner isn’t that surprising given its enduring popularity and legacy – the show clearly influenced/inspired several other of our selections – and next year it will return to our screens after 35 years for three new feature length episodes. Yes folks LWT’s brilliant drama Upstairs, Downstairs won the poll with 22.1% of the vote.

In second place with 20.2% of the vote is the BBC Drama series Lark Rise to Candleford which has had three successful seasons so far on BBC One with a fourth currently in production. The Sunday evening drama regularly attracts over 6 million viewers so its hardly surprising it made it into second place. In third place is the ATV drama The Cedar Tree (one of the Upstairs, Downstairs inspired shows on our list) which had 19.4% of the vote. In fourth place was another of Jean Marsh’s and Eileen Atkins creation; The House of Eliott. The BBC drama from the 1990s ran for three seasons and was set in a 1920s fashion house and had 19.4% of your vote.

In fifth place is the costume drama with a twist; Lost In Austen. The ITV drama which saw a modern Jane Austen fan swap places with Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice had 6.9% of your vote – a movie version of the drama is being developed. The classic Granada series A Family At War had 5.6% of your vote while American Civil War drama Poldark had 4.7%. Not far behind is the original BBC version of The Forstye Saga from the 1960s while the critically acclaimed Granada adaptation of Bridehead Revisited, from the 1980s, had 3.3%. The Waltons, the American drama set during the Great Depression of the 1930s, had 1.6% as did The Onedine Line. In bottom place with just 0.7% of the vote was The Duchess of Duke Street.

The Weekly Poll will return in a few weeks for a brand new season.