Mr. Selfridge

This new PBS Masterpiece series written by Andrew Davies is plenty addicting without the lords and ladies, opening a treasure box of tales about love, loss, ambition and the spirit of a new age.

The sets and costuming are top-notch. The musical score is brash, if redundant. The personal dramas range from silly to 
diverting.

Sumptuously shot and full of period detail, Mr. Selfridge is stocked with plenty of upstairs/downstairs drama, often with a little too much attention being lavished on the workers’ personal storylines.

Mr. Selfridge really gets rolling in its third and fourth episodes, when its interlocking stories and Piven’s outsize performance settle into place.

While we don't have the same rush of affection as we did when we first discovered "Downton," we found Mr. Selfridge entertaining.

The idea Selfridge was a serial philanderer adds an interesting layer to the character who, despite being the boss, actually blends into the large cast, in a series that’s full of romantic triangles, hunger and striving, and where good-looking waiters are urged to cater to the needs of wealthy socialites.

The 1909 businessman hangs like an ill-fitting suit on Piven, who suffocates his scenes by speaking several decibels louder than his costars and waving his arms around like a magician. A little subtlety might have left some oxygen for the promising supporting cast.

As drama, it's uneven, often cliched, even silly, but, like the store in which it's set--and whose ground floor, mezzanine and facade have been splendidly re-created--so variously stocked that you will likely find something here to take home.

Mr. Selfridge unfurls a number of subplots, tied to business, politics, class gaps, romance and so on. Some are more engaging than others.

[Piven] brings a contemporary delivery that is jarring in the context of all the period elements around him. Alas, in this particular entourage, which is filled with promise, Piven is the weak link.

As the series goes on and takes a deeper interest in the multitude of characters he's gathered around him, Mr. Selfridge begins to come into focus. Whether you'll find it as engaging as "Downton Abbey" may depend less on any single performance than on how invested you can become in the rise of the modern perfume counter and off-the-rack dresses.

It plays like a desperate attempt to recreate all the wonder of “Downton Abbey”--but with no characters to care about.

In execution, Mr. Selfridge is a bit of a slog.

It's modestly entertaining, but because Davies and his writers and directors have employed a kind of wink-wink artificiality to the performances and style of Mr. Selfridge, you never quite believe much of it and you may find yourself caring only in passing.

There’s not much that’s particularly fresh in Mr. Selfridge beyond the premise, and whether that deserves eight parts is up to you.

It suffers from hyperbole-exhaustion. Piven's performance is too broad. One wishes Ira would show up and give Harry a slap.

A so-so, meandering soap opera that reduces its central character to a set of clichés about missing fathers and American energy and egalitarianism.

The lavish Selfridges is a fine setting for class-conscious if derivative period drama--with shopgirl gossip and staff romances--and what we learn about the history of commerce is often entertaining, but the philandering showman whose name is on the door makes you feel you're being sold an inferior bill of goods.