City of Vice (2008)

[RainDog]

http://www.hulu.com/city-of-vice

This series won the Royal Television Society Judges' Award, 2008.

Set in London in 1753 - The entire series run consists of 5 episodes, all of which are available for free via Hulu (link above.)

via wiki -

City of Vice is a British historical crime drama television series set in Georgian London and was first screened on 14 January 2008 on Channel 4. The series mixes fiction with fact following the fortunes of the famous novelist Henry Fielding (Ian McDiarmid) and his brother John (Iain Glen). Henry and John Fielding were magistrates of Westminster and the men who created the modern police force in Britain through the Bow Street Runners. The series was written by Clive Bradley and Peter Harness, whose scripts were nominated for a Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Series, 2008. It was directed by Justin Hardy and Dan Reed. The historical consultant was Hallie Rubenhold.

The show uses authentic historical research to tell the story of the two men battling to create a police force, 75 years before Robert Peel founded the Metropolitan Police. Henry Fielding’s memoirs and contemporary sources such as the Old Bailey Sessions Papers have been used to provide historical accuracy to the series.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Great show!

It really gives you an idea of how tough life was in the eighteenth century. Even the great manor houses are dark and cold.