“Belgravia,” a six-episode British period drama from “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes (adapted from his 2016 novel), is everything you want it to be, but not one bit more: a pedigreed, crunchy-gravel story with all the trimmings and light melodramas, set in London’s most affluent neighborhood in 1841, where an old family secret is just dying to get out. Belgravia (one hour) premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on Epix. As soon as she gazes at him, Maria exudes all the certainty that Edmund felt in his new life with Sophia, prompting him to realize that “I am where I want to be.” Times of crises have the potential to bring us all toward a newfound sense of clarity, and there’s a good chance that “Belgravia” could help guide you toward your own. Whether a queen or a goose girl, they are all in the same boat.". “Belgravia” is often more basic than captivating, even with all its 19th-century grandeur and two shipshape performances from Walter and Greig, whose characters ally themselves to stage-manage a standard-issue conclusion. In Belgravia, Fellowes says, "the servants are working men and women, not the children of cosy tenant farmers, but people struggling to survive in a world without safety nets. Her husband, the Duke, commanded the reserve force in Brussels, which was then part of the United Kingdom, to defend the city in the event of invasion by the armies of Napoleon. And William Makepeace Thackeray wrote about it in his novel, Vanity Fair. The story introduces its key players at the ball – James (Philip Glenister) and Anne Trenchard (Tamsin Greig), their daughter Sophia (Emily Reid) and her potential suitor Edmund Bellasis (Jeremy Neumark Jones) – and picks up the story later in the wealthy London suburb of Belgravia. The brightest light shining through the murky decadence of this epic story is Maria, who couldn’t care less about Charles’ class or even his reputation when it comes to her feelings for him. Significantly, its origin as a novel means Belgravia comes to the screen as "a complete and single narrative, not an on-going drama that can meander forward for years". Had the bomb simply gone off without warning, it would’ve produced a momentary jolt, but nothing more. Decades later, in more mutual social orbits, Anne feels compelled to tell the countess about the grandson she never knew she had. "The main relationship of the piece in fact concerns two women, different in many ways but united by their shared loss of a child," Fellowes says. Hitchcock knew that a bomb would be infinitely scarier if the audience were aware of its placement under a table where two oblivious characters were seated. Matt Fagerholm is an Assistant Editor at RogerEbert.com and is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. It is Anne’s burning need to inform Caroline about Charles at the top of episode two that produces a whole new slew of complications, while feeding into the bitterness of her entitled son, Oliver (Richard Goulding). You were on your own in the 1840s and you had to make sure you weren't crushed by the system. It’s a little disappointing that “Belgravia” doesn’t have the sense of humor masterfully maintained by Maggie Smith on “Downton Abbey,” especially considering the comedic chops of Greig, though it does have a fair share of laughs, both intentional (as with a running gag about forbidden business papers at an elite club) and unintentional (a dreaded encounter takes place at the Black Raven bar on All Hallows Lane—how’s that for subtlety?). The ball, hosted by Charlotte, Duchess of Richmond, was held the night before the Battle of Quatre Bras. While Belgravia may share some superficial similarities of tone and style with Fellowes' other great work, Downton Abbey, the writer describes his new series as "a metropolitan show, with harder ambitions, and greedier goals". Tamsin Greig and Emily Reid as Anne and Sophia Trenchard in Belgravia. In the opening moments of Epix’s six-part original series, “Belgravia,” Anne Trenchard (Tamsin Greig) acknowledges the absurdity of her family attending a ball when their country is perched on the brink of war. "I have been to Goodwood [in Chichester, West Sussex, the seat of the Duke of Richmond] and I have seen the list of guests in the Duchess' own hand," Fellowes says. A: I was ecstatic, obviously. The buried identity of Charles’ birth parents is the ticking bomb reverberating beneath every scene in “Belgravia,” and once it is unveiled toward the end of episode one, the suspense increases in every hour that follows, culminating with a finale that had me on the edge of the my seat. That being said, they are, for the most part, enormously satisfying, resulting in a final episode that consists of one cathartic payoff and nail-biting set piece after another. But, in another “Downton”-esque move, the true heir begins to emerge: a solid, hard-working, middle-class gentleman, Charles Pope (Jack Bardoe), that secret baby, all grown up and puzzled as to why half of Belgravia is suddenly desperate to make his acquaintance. Here, a successful building developer, James Trenchard (Philip Glenister), and his instinctively circumspect wife, Anne (Tamsin Greig), have risen to a comfortable rung on the ladder during a time of progress in the early years of the Victorian age. Perhaps one reason why British suspense yarns outclass all others is that they deeply understand the restraint needed to conceal one’s turbulent emotions beneath an inconspicuous pokerface while dodging the subtle minefields embedded within public conversation. ... He’s also starred in Friday Night Dinner (opposite Belgravia co-star Tamsin Greig), and more recently historical dramas Chernobyl and Catherine the Great. Days later, at the victorious Battle of Waterloo, many of the young men who attended the ball would lose their lives. The viewers are in on this secret almost from the beginning, which turns the series into a protracted exercise of hurry-up-and-wait, to see if things turn out all right. Philip Glenister as James Trenchard in Belgravia. Purring his lines like George Sanders while flashing a punchable grin, James is a spectacularly effective menace, though the series’ true villain, as affirmed by Charles, is the society responsible for pushing such scoundrels to desperate ends. Walter is especially fun as she relishes the opportunity to dismantle taboos, dismissing Lady Templemore’s charges that she has corrupted her daughter by supplying the gleeful response, “I do hope so.” The typically excellent score by John Lunn echoes Pino Donaggio’s immortal themes for “Carrie” in its use of strings to accentuate building tension, though not all revelations saved for later episodes are all that difficult to guess.