Cranford

Judi Dench leads an extraordinary ensemble of older British actresses — including Eileen Atkins, Imelda Staunton, and Julia McKenzie — in this BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Victorian novels. Set in a small English town governed by its genteel but financially precarious older women, Cranford is a rare series in which women over fifty are the protagonists, the moral centre, and the comic force. Originally broadcast in 2007 with a two-part Christmas special in 2009; available on PBS Masterpiece in the US.