Letterboxd
So, evidently the BBC released this as 14 episodes where the first and last episodes are 60 minutes and the rest are 30 (60, 30*12, 60). Somehow though, the version I watched was condensed down to 8 episodes of 53 minutes each. So, by my math, some things must have been cut (possibly re-arranged) to make this kind of work out. I don't know, the whole thing is just deeply complicated, why would you remix the original series anyway?
The story itself was kind of ridiculous. Dickens wrote most of this stuff in serial form, and it kind of shows. The ending is... a bit unexpected. It was well acted and well produced, but the pacing is absurd. I also don't know if it is just this rendition or the original source material, but it is very uneven. Some characters are given half an episode, and then are never heard of again. Sometimes they mention characters late in the series that we have never heard mention before. It is just odd. I would say that the choice of how to cut up this material was (maybe) the most serious failure of this series.
Still, it was actually quite enjoyable. We had to pause several times per episode to talk our way through characters and their relationships, as well as make our future predictions about who was what to whom. Imagine what this felt like in serial form, as people waited for the next part of the series. It must have been all people talked about around the water cooler.