Are people comparing something set in the 1600's to something set in the 1930's?!? Am I missing how people are comparing a serie about the lives of an aristocratic family of the 1900's to colonizers of the 1600's?!? Downtown abbey is bleak and non factual. This may not be either but it's more exciting than dreary Downton Abbey where they all speak with those horrible artificial British accents they so often display back then! I fall asleep a lot throughout as I watch it late after I'm done with other things I am watching but none the less it's a decent , intriguing show. Yes Mercy, Jocelynn the one idiot Burn Gorman and some others are irritating it's a decent watch with all the trite available out there now..