Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I think my negative reaction to this series was a result of my unrealistic expectations. I had just finished watching Upstairs Downstairs and thought The Grand was along those lines, or at least more like The Duchess of Duke Street. Instead, this was a seamy (and at times steamy) and trashed up soap opera. I failed to like or even feel sympathetic for the majority of the characters and, in real life, I would NOT have cared to stay an hour at a time with any of them. Why, then, would I sacrifice an hour of my time watching them? Within the first two episodes, we're "treated" to someone blowing his brains out (focus on all that blood on the wall, please), a masochistic pervert being serviced by a former whore, and a swarmy villain who might as well have had a handlebar moustache to twirl. Another reviewer noted, "This series has everything one could want: love, hate, war vets, lust, deceit, betrayal, money, and power." The problem for me was that it lacked compassion, affection, likeable people and all the other positive characteristics and activities that make a show worth viewing. So, if you go into it knowing beforehand that it is a melodramatic dip into the dirty end of the pool, you may like it. If you are hoping for something with more smiles than sneers, or something closer to the "old style" Masterpiece Theater, you may -- like me -- decide that it just isn't that grand.