Indian Summers (2015)

Indian Summers is a sweeping period drama set in the final years of British rule in India, tracing officials, servants, and socialites through the hill town of Simla. Class tension and repressed desire simmer under the surface of every drawing-room scene. That heat doesn't stay buried for long. Rachel Griffiths plays a boarding house owner with a guarded past and a commanding grip on every scene she enters. Olivia Grant brings a quieter intensity to a woman torn between propriety and longing. The archive holds 3 scenes between them, mixing nude and sex scenes into the show's slow-burn melodrama. Nothing here feels bolted on for shock value. It plays like the natural release of everything the series keeps tightly corseted. Fans of lush costume drama with real skin in the game will find exactly that.