The Elizabeth Gaskell Collection & Cranford (2008)

Stiff upper lips, knives in the back, love just out of reach--and then suddenly in hand.

This satisfying collection of three mini-series from the BBC are based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s Victorian novels. In “North & South,” Margaret Hale (Daniela Denby-Ashe) must leave her rural life in the southern England and find herself in the north.

It’s a chore, but the love she finds in John Thornton (Richard Armitage) gets her through it.

“Wives and Daughters” stars Justine Waddell as Molly Gibson, who has, shall we say, some issues with her difficult stepmother, Hyacinth (Francesca Annis).

Gaskell died before completing the novel, but it doesn’t show here.

Also in the set (and available separately) is “Cranford,” which joins together three Gaskell novels--“Cranford,” “My Lady Ludlow,” “Mr. Harrison’s Confessions”--and which finds Dame Judi Dench co-starring opposite Dame Eileen Atkins.

So, given that talent and those titles, you can imagine the drama they create onscreen.

“Collection”: Grade: B+; “Cranford”: Grade: A-