While we wait for Downton Abbey...there is a treasure called Foyle's War!
We seem drawn to shows around the WWII time frame, and also love mysteries. We also like good plot that moves at a nice relaxed pace, and great acting - Foyle's War really has it all. We are probably 2/3 way through the series, which we are getting on Netflix DVDs - one episode to a disc. Best parts are the incredible, understated acting of Michael Kitchen (Berkeley Cole in Out of Africa, also a prominent role in Enchanted April among others), and two actors we'd not known until now - Anthony Howell and the amazingly cute, screen grabbing Honeysuckle Weeks.
Truth be told, we enjoyed season one of Downton Abbey, but find the last few - esp. the very last season - of slipping into a "Harry Potter movie-like need to resolve all peril in about 10 seconds". I wish the writer would assume a bit more patience from his audience and make it a bit more deep and patient....Upstairs, Downstairs was a nice blueprint for this series and we like the pacing of it much better than Downton.
Anyway...if you don't know of, or haven't seen, Foyle's War, give it a try and prepare to be addicted!
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The Duchess Of Duke Street is a BBC television drama series set in London between 1900 and 1925. It was created by John Hawkesworth, the former producer of the highly successful ITV period drama Upstairs, Downstairs. It starred Gemma Jones as Louisa Trotter, the eponymous "Duchess" who works her way up from servant to renowned cook to proprietrix of the upper-class Bentinck Hotel in Duke Street, St. James's, in London.
The story is loosely based on the real-life career of Rosa Lewis (née Ovenden), the "Duchess of Jermyn Street", who ran the Cavendish Hotel in London.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Duchess_of_Duke_Street
I especially enjoyed seeing how kitchens were run back then, and how much I learned about cooking from scratch 
Then the story caught me up..
