BritBox

Outrageous draws on the real life story of the six Mitford sisters who found themselves in the public spotlight in the 1930s for often scandalous choices that divided the family with polarizing political opinions. Two of the sisters turned to fascism, one to communism, while another became a writer. The series is listed as a drama but the first installment plays more like a jaunty romp through British high society where wealth and class can keep reality at bay. Nancy, the writer, narrates the story. She foreshadows the scandals and divisiveness to come but brushes all that aside because she is getting ahead of herself so there’s time for fun before the family falls from grace. The tone is light and breezy, so nothing feels like it has real emotional weight. Even when Diana and Unity head to Nuremberg to hear Hitler speak and come back infatuated with fascism, the tone still feels casual. Considering what is going on in the world now, I was expecting a little more resonance. This first episode speeds through a lot of relationships – marriages, engagements, divorces – and uses them to remind us of the social structure of Britain in the 1930s. If a woman wasn’t married by 30 then she was doomed to be a spinster; only male heirs could inherit a family’s fortune; and gay men had to marry for cover since homosexuality was illegal in England (until 1967).