Dissolute, opium-addicted choirmaster John Jasper (Matthew Rhys, THE EDGE OF LOVE) is bored with the monotony of country life and respectability. Lusting after Rosa Bud (SALEM's Tamzin Merchant), the promised fiancee of his carefree nephew Edwin Drood (Freddie Fox, VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN), he dreams and fantasizes about murdering his nephew so that she might be his. When Ceylon-born half-Indian orphans Helena (THE PUNISHER's Amber Rose Revah) and Neville (THE HISTORY BOYS' Sacha Dhawan) are taken in by Minor Canon Reverend Septimus (Rory Kinnear, THE IMITATION GAME), Rosa confides in Helena her fear of Jasper who dominates her through music. When Jasper realizes that Neville has fallen in love with Rosa and resents the way Edwin treats her, he foments animosity between the two young men, later spreading news about a scuffle between the English gentleman and the savage Easterner ostensibly out of concern. Upon learning that she will not lose her inheritance held in trust should she not marry Edwin, Rosa and he agree to be "as brother and sister." Jasper is unaware of this when he invites the two men to dinner to reconcile. When Edwin disappears the next day, Neville becomes the prime suspect and Jasper renews his overtures towards Rosa. Masterpiece Theatre and BBC take another stab at adapting and creating a solution for Charles Dickens' famed unfinished THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, and the results are narratively satisfying if not dramatically. This is a handsome production with good lead performances and support from Alun Armstrong (NEW TRICKS), Julia McKenzie (FRESH FIELDS), Ron Cook (CHOCOLAT), and Ellie Haddington (LAWLESS HEART) among others but it lacks a depth of characterization that a longer adaptation (with more creative license) might have had than what comes across here like a period-set "Masterpiece Mystery!" television drama.