I watched the sequel first, which was so good it prompted me to watch the original series. I'm 3 episodes into season 1, and don't think I can slog my way through any more of it. The acting is horrendously hammy, and the story lines are foolish and juvenile. Unlike the recent Upstairs Downstairs, it's unrealistic (in one scene, one of the actresses was changing out of her clothes and you could see she was wearing bikini underwear under her white bloomers), and showed little of what the world was actually like in that era. The house it's set in is dull, and alll of the characters are over exaggerated, annoying, and unlikeable. Basically, it's just a bad 1970's Soap Opera.