Amy works as a seamstress for Mrs. Clennam, a cranky, cold and forbidding semi-invalid living in a crumbling home with servants, the sinister Jeremiah Flintwinch and his bumbling wife, Affery.

Arthur is enamoured of the beautiful Minnie (Pet) Meagles, who prefers aspiring artist, Henry Gowan, to her parents' distress.

Arthur, observing his mother's uncharacteristically benevolent attitude towards Amy, suspects his family may be responsible for the Dorrits' misfortunes and asks rent collector and amateur detective, Mr. Pancks, to investigate.

Dorrit, now wealthy, leaves the Marshalsea and insists his family forget their "shameful past" and everyone connected to it, snubbing and insulting Arthur.

Merdle kills himself, his suicide note revealing that his bank is a Ponzi scheme which has ruined thousands, including Arthur, who is forced into the Marshalsea.

Rigaud demands £2,000 to keep silent, but Mrs. Clennam leaves her house for the first time in years, finds Amy, reveals the truth, and begs forgiveness.

The series was filmed on location at Chenies Manor House, Luton Hoo, and Hellfire Caves in Buckinghamshire; Deal Castle in Kent; Hampton Court Palace as the Marshalsea; and the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

On Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 10 critics have given the series a positive review, and the consensus states, "With a sterling cast and plenty of juicy drama, Little Dorrit is a superb adaptation.

[citation needed] One reviewer for The Daily Telegraph wrote that "Some of the acting has been a bit too hammy" and blamed falling viewing figures on "confusion over scheduling, starting as an hour long special and then breaking into half an hour episodes, like a Victorian East Enders";[8] another added that it "doesn't seem to have caught on in the same way as other recent costume dramas such as Cranford and Bleak House", both due to scheduling and also down since "it wasn't quite as good" as these two programmes, though also that "Most of the cast were as reliably terrific".

All the carefully built mystery implodes in the final act, as the importance of a number of characters... and the backstory itself are left murky in ways that Dickens made clear...

"[14] Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times noted, "Not every character is exactly as described on paper; some don't stay around long enough to register and others who have earned our interest just disappear.

"[15] Jonathan Storm of The Philadelphia Inquirer stated, "Andrew Davies, who made 2006's Bleak House one of the best TV shows of the year, crafts another superb script, with characters and incidents squeezing out the sides, just the thing to satisfy close observers, which anyone joining this maxi mini-series should be.

Costumes, sets, and actors, a broad lot of those super-skilled, terrifically trained Brits, make for sumptuous viewing... You pretty much know what to expect when Masterpiece visits the 19th century.

"[16] In her review in The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley said the series "is as rich at the margins as at the center with strange, and strangely believable, characters from almost all levels of society, rendered in quick, firm strokes,"[17] while David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "terrific entertainment... in some ways, perhaps even better than its source material.