Episode 2 (The Casual Vacancy) praised the cast, in particular Abigail Lawrie, Rory Kinnear and Rufus Jones Ceri Radford of "The Telegraph" gave the episode 4 out of 5 stars, despite some reservations about the digressions, saying: Episode 2 (The Casual Vacancy) "Episode 2" is the second episode of the British miniseries "The Casual Vacancy" based on the novel of the same title by J. K. Rowling. The parish council election approaches and Pagford is on tenterhooks awaiting the next post from 'the Ghost of Barry Fairbrother'. Who is the Ghost, and what will they say? Is anyone in the village safe from humiliation? As
BBC television drama the victim of a viewer backlash against the massive advertising campaign the BBC had undertaken to promote it, was scrapped by Powell's successor Alan Yentob after less than a year's run, under pressure from the Director-General of the BBC John Birt. The 1990s saw a rise in the popularity of costume drama adaptations of literary classics, mostly adapted by the acclaimed screenwriter Andrew Davies. One of the most successful of these was a 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. Contemporary social drama, a BBC signature style since the 1960s, remained in the