The Hardacres returned for a second season on Channel 5 at 9pm, and the working-class family at the centre of the series found money trouble waiting for them. A recession hit the family business as they worried how much longer they could afford their country pile.
Emma also received a visit from her formidable mother, Lady Imelda, played by Michele Dotrice, adding another source of pressure to a household already on edge. The new season keeps the story close to the family’s attempt to hold on to its new life while the numbers no longer add up.
The premise still leans on the same appeal that has helped the show find an audience: a class-hopping version of Downton Abbey, but with the Hardacres trying to keep up rather than glide above the crisis. The old money next door, meanwhile, was struggling too, which gives the series an extra layer of irony as both sides of the estate feel the strain.
called the show generic but still very likeable, a fair description of a drama that does not try to reinvent the period genre so much as make it nimble enough to keep moving. For the Hardacres, the question is not whether the lifestyle looks good on screen. It is whether they can keep paying for it.
