I wish they'd just film the book.

If I hadn't read Dr. Thorne this series would have passed as a reasonably enjoyable pretty little costume drama. But having read this and Trollop's earlier books in the series I was looking forward to a gently meandering story with little asides to the reader and subtly sketched characters.
So what happens when they extract the bare bones of the story, select a talented but totally mismatched cast (compared with my vision of the characters) and jolly it along to fit in to a 3 hour drama.
Well, to answer my own question, you get this program. What a pity that every novel that is a potential costume drama is stripped back to a series of tropes such that they could have been written by anyone. It would be nice if someone had the radical idea of actually adapting a book as it was written and putting that to a audience - you never know but we, the goggle eyed folk behind the 4th wall, might have the patience and intelligence to appreciate something closer to the original source.
I don't fault the cast, there are several favourites of mine and some interesting new faces, but not a single character seems quite right for the part - at least as I saw them when I read the book. Particularly annoying is the casting of Miss Dunstable as an American. I enjoyed watching Alison Brie but making this character an alien diminished the perception of an interesting clever woman moving amongst these entitled people whilst gently refusing to be like them.