Airdate: Doctor Thorne

In June ABC will premiere Julian Fellowes’ (Downton Abbey) latest series, Doctor Thorne.

The period drama is an adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s 1858 novel in which the son of a wealthy family falls in love the niece of a local doctor. But his mother believes it is her son’s duty to make a rich marriage to save the family estate, and launches a campaign to secure her son an heiress.

The three part series, starring Tom Hollander, Stefanie Martini and Ian McShane, aired in the UK in March.

Dr Thomas Thorne (Tom Hollander) lives in the village of Greshamsbury in Barsetshire, with his beautiful niece, Mary (Stephanie Martini), a girl blessed with every gift except money.

Mary has grown up alongside the Gresham sisters – Augusta (Gwyneth Keyworth), Beatrice (Nell Barlow) and Alexandrina (Kate O‘Flynn) and their handsome brother Frank (Harry Richardson), whose home is the great house and estate at Greshamsbury Park.

When Mary is excluded from the wedding preparations of her childhood playmate she probes her uncle for the truth of her birth, and is devastated to learn that she is the illegitimate child of his late brother.

8:30pm Sunday June 12 on ABC.