As a Canadian, I grew up on Anne of Green Gables and I loved it! The characters, setting, cleaver dialogue and fun upbeat feeling to those movies was perfect for kids of all ages.
Having said that, anyone who might have seen Anne with an E might think I would hate it as it has a darker more realistic feel, pretty much cuts some main characters from the original and removes some of the fun parts, but I actually really liked this series a lot!
The most important thing to me is the central character, Anne. She grew on me very quickly and I felt more emotions from her than I was expecting to. I felt drawn to her, I was engaged by her silly eccentric ways and I also was sad when she was sad, and crushed when she was mistreated. There were times I wanted to reach into the tv, grab her and take her into my home. She is such a sweetie and has so much baggage.
I felt like some of the newly created content added unnecessary drama (especially in the final two shows) but if you're making a tv series out of a book, you need to do that, so it was okay. It just felt like some times there was a lot to keep track of with things happening to so many characters with their back stories, current stories, and hints of future conflicts. It got pretty intense.
Speaking of this series as if it were a serious drama would be very one-dimensional. There were some very expected humorous moments, from the books and previous shows, and there was also some new content that had me laughing out loud. It had a good balance of fun mixed into it, but I would definitely not put it in the genre of comedy.
Some notes for enjoyment: Try (if you can) to not compare it to Anne of Green Gables. They are very different in tone, and quite a bit of new content. But the story, casting and show overall tells a powerful, imaginative and fun story.
Parental notes: Anne with an E deals with some heavy topics and some mature topics. It shows/mentions them in a way that is not offensive, but it does touch on some of the things an orphan passed from family to family would deal with and be exposed to. I would not recommend this for children of all ages, perhaps you might want to watch it first before showing young kids.