Tonight: The Crimson Petal and the White

Encore is airing their miniseries The Crimson Petal and the White tonight, and I know Sunday nights are busy TV nights, but fans of historical drama may want to check this out. It's based on the very popular novel about Victorian England, which I've actually never read, so I was going into this more or less blind. (Though now I certainly want to read the book.) A warning: It's well-made, but it's not . . . fun. It's a fascinating, thoroughly depressing look at Victorian sex, power (financial, psychological, etc.), madness, abuse, and the often desperate ways women found to deal with their severely limited world and options. The cast is phenomenal: Romola Garai, Chris O'Dowd, Amanda Hale, Shirley Henderson, Gillian Anderson, Mark Gatiss, and more. Again - this is no light costume drama, at all, but it's worth a watch.