Though based on a 1979 Barbara Taylor Bradford novel, the new eight-episode British series “A Woman of Substance” nonetheless feels more like “Downton Abbey” meets “Dynasty.” In a good way, let me hasten to add, despite the absence of Joan Collins. If you’re fond of period dramas in which women in excellent frocks hiss “I WILL RUIN ALL OF YOU” in the general direction of a posh family who has done them wrong, this just might be an enjoyable summer binge. Should you wish for more substance … well, there’s always fall.

Though the great Brenda Blethyn (“Vera”) has top billing here, oddly she’s not in the series much. “A Woman of Substance” unfolds in two time periods: Blethyn plays Emma Harte in the 1970s, at the time of her 80th birthday; Jessica Reynolds plays her as a young woman, beginning in the years before World War I. Still in her teens when we first meet her, young Emma is a winsome Yorkshire lass working as a maid in a grand home; though mistreated by the nasty butler (whose name, I am delighted to inform you, is Murgatroyd), she has dreams of a better, bigger life.

Those dreams get derailed temporarily due to an ill-fated upstairs-downstairs liaison — but only temporarily, mind you; this young woman is made of very strong stuff. Now and then, the series jumps ahead about 60 years, where Blethyn’s Emma, now an incredibly wealthy and powerful department-store mogul, is dealing with double-crossing relatives and an excess of shag carpeting.

This is the second television adaptation of “A Woman of Substance” (the first, a huge hit in 1985, featured Deborah Kerr and Jenny Seagrove), and it has no shortage of source material: The bestselling novel, which weighs in at close to 1,000 pages, is the first of seven Bradford novels documenting the lives of Emma and her various and often undeserving offspring. You sense that knowing all seven books might be useful for the 1970s segments in the series, which are all quite brief and feature a number of characters I had trouble sorting out (just how many children does Emma have, anyway?).

Blethyn, though weighed down by some unfortunate dialogue (“What I’ve dedicated my life to is revenge,” she announces in the first episode, as one does), is effective and movingly haunted as 80-year-old Emma, but the show isn’t much interested in her; most of the screen time is spent in rural England in the very early 20th century, as young Emma begins her climb.

And that climb is, for the most part, pretty mesmerizing. Reynolds (“Outlander,” “House of Guinness”) conveys nerves of steel in Emma’s soft voice and resolute posture, and the aristocratic Fairley family is clearly no match for her. Unlike “Downton Abbey,” where the rich people are for the most part well-meaning, here things are quite black and white: The Fairley men, consisting of squire Adam (Emmett J. Scanlan) and his sons Gerald (Harry Cadby) and Edwin (Ewan Horrocks), are all combinations, in varying degrees, of evil and cluelessness.

Meanwhile, the Fairley women are either deeply troubled (Adam’s wife Adele, played by Leanne Best, rarely leaves her room, though I can’t blame her as the wallpaper is breathtaking) or possessed of extremely poor judgment (Adele’s hapless sister Olivia, played by Lydia Leonard, who is for some reason obsessed with evil Adam). What follows is much shrieking, drinking, scheming, burning rage, impassioned pronouncements, weirdly easy childbirth, casual fashion announcements (Lycra, we’re told by somebody in the ’70s, is “the next big thing”) and a denouement in which young Emma, just before going into final battle, expertly pushes up the black veil of her smart little hat as if it’s armor. Revenge, here, is quite well-accessorized.

All of this plays out against the gorgeous backdrop of the Fairley ancestral home (played by Broughton Hall in north Yorkshire) and a glorious assortment of lavish costumes. “A Woman of Substance” looks like money was spent not on big names in the cast, but on making every frame look stunning.

And while it veers from the book in a number of key plot points (not least its very “Dynasty” ending, entirely different from Bradford’s and yet irresistibly pointing to another season ), it’s an enjoyably soapy wallow that will remind you of other and maybe better shows, but nonetheless keep you watching. If Emma can do all of this in just one season, just think what she can do with the next.

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‘A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE’

Rating: TV-MA

How to watch: On BritBox June 24

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