This series begins with new dramatic and romantic scenes that reflect many different historical and dramatic events. The series opens its events, as the tortured Janvart forced Jean Valian by Jaafar and his own conscience to reveal his true identity, but the promise to Vantin changes everything. Things look to thenders when rich rich arrives at their inn, but their joy is short-lived.
The star of this episode, though - and its moral pivot - was Derek Jacobi, playing the bishop who transforms Valjean's life by showing him love and mercy
Now that the nuts and bolts are in place we can look forward to what promises to be a quality series safe in the knowledge that (apologies to musical fans) every Tom, Dick and Harry won't be bursting into godawful song.
As ever, Davies reaches into the pages to find the secret kernel that makes characters tick for the novelist, be it Tolstoy or Hugo, rather than being at all awed by the scope or heft of the book.
The characterisations ring true, the sense of life as a merciless lottery is ever-present, and the performances carry enough weight to suggest that they'll go the six-part distance.
While I don't really know exactly how grumpy you might be after spending 19 years on a static prison ship for stealing a loaf of bread, West's redemption has been nicely primed without anybody needing to make a song and dance about it.
It will be a long and bumpy road, but you have the sense that the makers know what they're doing and that the end result may prove dramatically rewarding.
It's a faithful, well-made, and yes, perhaps unadventurous, retelling of a collection of stories whose protest against injustice will, as Hugo wrote, always serve a purpose.
Davies's script has so far hit the main marks and tripped lightly through a thicket of exposition. Sometimes he has been constrained by threadbare material.