South Riding: Season 1
  • Network: BBC-1 , PBS , BBC
  • Series Premiere Date: May 1, 2011
  • Season #: 1
South Riding Image
Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.0 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 4 Ratings

Your Score
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  • Summary: Masterpiece Classic features the three-part adaptation of Winifred Holtby's novel about Sarah Burton (Anna Maxwell Martin), who is the new headmistress at the fictional town of South Riding in Yorkshire after World War I. Her ideas clash with the locals, including Robert Carne (David Morrissey), a local landowner.… Expand
  • Genre(s): Drama

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 7
  3. Negative: 1 out of 7
  1. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: David Hinckley
    May 2, 2011
    80
    South Riding creates memorable characters, particularly Burton and Carne, and it's beautifully filmed.
  2. Miami Herald
    May 2, 2011
    80
    South Riding has everything you could want from a Masterpiece event: perfect period details, a forlornly gray surf, a swelling soundtrack, disputes over crunchy-gravel real estate, whistling trains and black-tie dinners in hotels, a believable and compelling story involving multiple characters and plots and a faithfulness to its original material that allows for a textured, even sorrowful, bleakness.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Mary McNamara
    May 2, 2011
    60
    For fans of the canon, South Riding is "Masterpiece" comfort food, enjoyable enough in the moment, but melting away to nothing but sugar and fat by morning.
  4. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    Apr 26, 2011
    25
    If only Holtby and screenwriter Andrew Davies hadn't larded the story with so many cliches, not to mention people who seem like second-rate versions of characters created by Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.

See all 7 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. TVTX
    6
    For the most part, I liked it, but it was very much derivative of the Jane Eyre plot line, just updated a bit. After watching the 3 hours, I was disappointed with the ending, otherwise, I would have rated it higher. It seemed like that the outcome for each of the characters was shown in a sudden flash forward sequence, with only seconds for each one. Luckily, I have a DVR and could go back and check what had actually happened to each. Up until the end, I enjoyed the acting the dialogue and the characters quite a bit.… Expand

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