The Buccaneers review: This Apple TV+ costume drama is the new Bridgerton
This stylised period series about five young American women making their way in England has distinct shades of Netflix's mega-hit – and deserves to be as successful, writes Neil Armstrong.
This new period drama from Apple TV+ sets out its stall during a fantastical sequence in the opening episode. The debutantes at the debs ball in London are processing down a grand staircase, being closely appraised by young society men. The beautiful girls in their magnificent gowns stop and hold up paddles bearing numbers while the onlookers take notes and assess them as if they were livestock at a cattle market.
More like this:
That's, at least, how Nan St George (Kristine Froseth) sees it, and our smart, proto-feminist, young American heroine, a friend of two of those taking part, is appalled. Overhearing a middle-aged lecher's crude remark about imagining the girls on their backs, she leaps to the defence of her pals and turns on him: "Imagine them as human beings with no interest in your opinions and not caring if you're a king or a mister." The scene, perfectly soundtracked by Taylor Swift's Nothing New (featuring Phoebe Bridgers), encapsulates all the key elements of the show: feminism, friendship, disdain for the straitjacket of convention, cool, contemporary music.
The Buccaneers is loosely based on Edith Wharton's last, unfinished novel. It is set in the late 1870s and is the story of five wealthy young Americans. Two sets of sisters, Nan and Jinny St George (Imogen Waterhouse) and Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag) and Mabel Elmsworth (Josie Totah), are invited to England by the new husband of their friend Conchita (Alisha Boe). The pregnant Conchita has married an English lord (Josh Dylan) after a passionate, whirlwind romance.
When the St Georges and the Elmsworths arrive in London they are thrown into an endless round of parties, balls and celebrations, and each of the eight episodes is framed around some sort of gathering or big social occasion.
These fresh-faced buccaneering young Americans cut a swashbuckling swathe through the eligible men of the English aristocracy (at least, three of them do. Conchita is out of the game, and Mabel likes girls) but find themselves perpetually at odds with the stifling conventions of the stuffy old upper crust. In turn, many of the aristocrats are appalled by the "vulgarity" of the girls. The older generation have a stiff-upper-lip-take-it-on-the-chin-do-your-duty philosophy. Where the Americans are filled with exuberant joie de vivre, the English – or at least some of them – are chilly and reserved. Only a foreigner would talk about "feelings".
So it's partly about that culture clash – old money versus new, old world versus new – but it's also about female friendship. The girls fall out and make up, argue and reconcile, but ultimately they depend upon each other in order to cope with society's expectations of them; essentially that they be dutiful and obedient fiancées, wives and mothers at the expense of their own hopes and desires. As has been remarked before, Wharton was often writing not so much about a Gilded Age as about a Gilded Cage.
Hitting all the beats
Created and written by comedian and actor Katherine Jakeways with a team of British women writers, The Buccaneers is not a subtle show but it has been precision-tooled to hit all the beats that fans of romantic period dramas expect of the genre. Intimate letters are read by the wrong person. Snatches of conversation are overheard and misunderstood. Well-muscled men in tight trousers emerge from bodies of water. Nan has not one but two meet-cutes in the first episode. She bumps into the handsome English gentleman Guy Thwarte (Matthew Broome) in the street after she has climbed down the outside of a building. And she encounters "the greatest match in all England", the Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers), after they have both been swimming off a deserted beach in Cornwall. She has absolutely no idea who he is.
A costume drama revolving around society events in which a duke falls in love with a beautiful young woman from a wealthy family, soundtracked by modern tunes and filled with instantly meme-able scenes? It is a truth universally acknowledged that a streaming service with a good fortune must be in want of a Bridgerton. Any similarity to the Netflix series is presumably purely intentional. Will it be as big a hit?
It's been so expertly made that you have little choice but to just surrender to it. Resistance is futile. It looks absolutely beautiful. The costume designers have fully understood the assignment. And, take a bow, bonny Scotland, where it was filmed, and which doubles for New York, Cornwall and London. The music, from the likes of Warpaint, Bikini Kill and, of course, the mighty Swift, is excellent.
The up-and-coming Froseth is a very likeable lead. Nan's moxie takes a knock in the first episode when she learns a hurtful family secret, and Froseth plays her with a beguiling mixture of defiance and vulnerability.
There's a suitably detestable villain in Conchita's brother-in-law, the dastardly, gaslighting James (Barney Fishwick), described by his own sister, Honoria, as "a monster". A sweet clandestine romance develops when the strait-laced, repressed Honoria (Mia Threapleton) allows Mabel to loosen her strait-laces.
There are, amidst all the froth and fun, some gritty themes such as abuse, coercive control and grooming. And when Conchita, a woman of colour, feels rejected by the titled and entitled white family she has married into and asks "What if they look at my baby the same way they look at me?" it is not difficult to think of a contemporary parallel the creators may be going for.
And although Apple TV+ is remaining officially tight-lipped at present, certain plot points suggest a second season is a certainty. So, the makers seem to think they have a hit – and so do I.
★★★★☆
The first three episodes of The Buccaneers is streamed on Apple TV+ on 8 November, followed by new episodes weekly, every Wednesday.
If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news delivered to your inbox every Friday.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
