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 major location and shot entirely on videotape and thus comparatively cheap to make, longer runs of drama series became rare, with short series of six or eight episodes becoming the norm. The single play, in its original studio-based form, also began to disappear from the schedules, with the final series of "Play for Today" airing in 1984, and the last single drama recorded at Television Centre being "Henry IV, Part 1" in 1995. The BBC was envious of the success of its rival Channel 4's newly formed film arm, which had seen made-for-television one-offs such as Stephen Frears' "My Beautiful