Good TV

Of all the bad TV I consumed the last few days, I also have taken in some great stuff.  

Apple TV's The Essex Serpent 

The Essex Serpent is a 2022 British gothic romance period drama miniseries based on the novel of the same name by Sarah Perry. The series is written by Anna Symon, and directed by Clio Barnard, and stars Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston in lead roles.

The Essex Serpent follows London widow Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes) who moves to Essex to investigate reports of a mythical serpent. She forms a surprising bond of science and skepticism with the local pastor (Tom Hiddleston), but when tragedy strikes, locals accuse her of attracting the creature. 

I fantasize about be an archaeologist wearing THIS outfit! About the costuming. The Essex Serpent feels as much like a period piece as it does a Gothic folk tale—which is to say, its trappings in genre and place are present if hardly obvious. Just as Cora brims with a certain modernity, the show reveals a sense of nonconformist fashion, a grimy love for its muddy landscape, and a reverence for the intellectual debate at the novel’s heart. “I find it incredibly stimulating and invigorating,” Hiddleston says of that lattermost quality. “These characters are eloquent and articulate and deep thinkers who want to communicate their thinking to each other. It’s unusual to portray [people like that]…. You realize that both ways of thinking, both systems of belief, require a rigorous imagination.”