By the end of New Worlds’ second episode, the drama was soaring. Jeremy Northam’s King Charles II had dissolved parliament with the vainglorious air of a man who believes God has personally shined his sceptre, libertarian Angelica Fanshawe had died at the stake shouting republican incitements, and Will Blood – so close to the Crown Jewels yet so far – had leaped off a building after putting papist John Francis and his beloved wife out of their misery. Against a backdrop of baying crowds and regicidal plots, the series finally convinced me what a fascinating bit of history all this is. Dads in particular were dying left, right and centre. Abe learned of his father’s Massachusetts leap to freedom, Beth’s stepdad’s throat was slit mercifully in his prison cell, and Pastor Russell expired leaving daughter Hope to the questionable guardianship of the Boston Puritans. Boston, where Alice Englert’s character finds herself at odds with Puritan beliefs is – aptly – where the series’ best hope lies. There’s decent fish-out-of-water drama to be had in a frontierswoman transplanted to a city where she struggles to retain the freedom of life on the edge of civilisation, not that we saw much of it this week. At present, the Puritans are mere boo-hiss villains, hanging signs off grieving children and publicly shaming women for showing their forearms in the street. With all that business in Blighty to deal with, there wasn’t a great deal of room for nuance in Hope’s story this week, so a few more shades of light and dark are on my wish-list. Perhaps masochistically, despite the dialogue being heavier than the Restoration wigs and the characterisation weightier than that (it’s tricky telling the male characters apart when the revolutionaries all look like Frank from Shameless and the monarchists all look like Cher in the video for If I Could Turn Back Time), I’m still optimistic that our time with New Worlds will pay off. There’s a great deal of talent behind it, the odd glimmer of greatness (Patrick Malahide was going great guns in that prison cell speech), and, as the last ten minutes of this week showed, it has a fascinating story to tell. Give it time. Read Louisa’s review of the previous episode, here.
