Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as an inhabitant of British Colonial India, "is an inhabitant of an oppressed country". Verne took the name "Nautilus" from one of the earliest successful submarines, built in 1800 by Robert Fulton, who later invented the first commercially successful steamboat. Fulton's submarine was named after the paper nautilus because it had a sail. Three years before writing his novel, Jules Verne also studied a model of the newly developed French Navy submarine "Plongeur" at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, which inspired him for his definition of the "Nautilus". The breathing apparatus used by "Nautilus" divers is depicted as an untethered version
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky Times" called the series "a dreamy but gritty period drama, superbly acted" and "the kind of television at which the BBC repeatedly excels – rich and fulfilling for its understatement, discreet tales that are well told." "Variety" praised the series, writing it "brims with a sense of yearning that takes the very old quandary of not being able to control who one loves and puts an evergreen spin on it. Moreover, the production itself is as meticulous as the storytelling, from the drab palette used in capturing the Depression-era surroundings to the melancholy score." Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky