BBC1's dark and unsettling drama The Outcast came to a close this evening. The drama, starring Jessica Brown Findlay, Hattie Morahan and George MacKay, was based on Sadie Jones' best-selling novel and was a mere two episodes long. Lot long enough for those of you who like to be challenged by your Sunday night viewing.

Advertisement

But it's okay. Repress your feelings of depsair and wipe away those tears with your step-mother's handkerchief, because the world of on demand is overflowing with dark period dramas to fill the Outcast-shaped hole in your Sunday nights. We just know you're going to love...


Parade's End

Award-winning mini series Parade's End is another tale of upper-middle class, period woe. The beautifully shot five-part drama is based on the novels of Ford Madox Ford, and follows Christopher Tietjens (played by everyone's favourite Benedict Cumberbatch) an old fashioned fellow who finds himself in an all-consuming love triangle between himself, his socialite wife Sylvia (Rebecca Hall) and suffragette Valentine (Adelaide Clemens). It's all repressed feelings, errors of judgement and anguish. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0s2bTrceCc

More like this

Parade's End is available on Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video and iTunes


The Village

If you enjoy a side order of despair with your corset and crinoline, The Village should be your next must-watch series. It might look like a twee period drama set in England's green and pleasant land, but you can be sure this is no rose-tinted look back at pre-war Britain. The show currently has two series under its belt, and they are about as far as you can get from period dramas like Downton Abbey and Larkrise to Candleford. Following the upper and working class inhabitants of a rural village, the mud-covered and sometimes bleak drama deals with the effects of war, alcoholism, mental health, contraception, race and homosexuality. To name a few...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZVioINe2kA

The Village series 1 is available on blinkbox and Instant Video, series 2 is available on iTunes


Jamaica Inn

Set in the 1820s, Jamaica Inn is based on Daphne Du Maurier's gothic novel of the same name. It stars Jessica Brown Findlay (so Outcast fans should be especially happy) as Mary Yellan, an innocent young woman who moves to the bleak moors of the West Country after her mother dies and is thrown into a dangerous way of life. The BBC's is a bleak, eery and dark adaptation which was criticised on social media for the actors' accents and inaudible dialogue. If you can hear what's going on though - and we must confess we could - it's an atmospheric three episodes filled with intrigue, murder and mystery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwYu2d5t0KE

Advertisement

Jamaica Inn is available on iTunes


Why The Outcast is no ordinary period drama

TV and film on demand guide: which service should you choose?

10 shows you must watch on Netflix before you die

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement