Can Apple TV+’s ‘The Buccaneers’ Win The Hearts of ‘Bridgerton’ and ‘Sanditon’ Fans This Fall?

Still pining for more Sanditon? Desperate for the return of Bridgerton? Wondering aloud to yourself at night, “Hey, what happened to HBO’s The Gilded Age?” Well, Apple TV+‘s The Buccaneers just might fill the period drama-shaped hole in your life this fall. The bold new adaptation of Edith Wharton’s final, unfinished novel stars Sharp Stick‘s Kristine Froseth, 13 Reasons Why alum Alisha Boe, and Saved By the Bell‘s Josie Totah and is set to premiere November 8. Apple TV+ confirmed The Buccaneers premiere date along with a first look at the show’s key characters.

American novelist Edith Wharton had a front row seat to the agony and ecstasy of The Gilded Age thanks to her family’s obscene wealth and connections. Some of her best loved works examined the hypocrisy of the time period, exposing the craven impulses hiding under the gilt aesthetics of the age. Wharton’s final, unfinished work, The Buccaneers, was set during her girlhood at a time when the new money heiresses of New York City were landing fortune hunting British aristocrats as husbands.

Apple TV+’s new drama series is inspired by Wharton’s work, but clearly not beholden to it. (Just look at how they’ve renamed the Duke of Tintagel “Theo.”) The series is written by series creator Katherine Jakeways and directed by Susannah White. Apple TV+’s write up of the series is as follows: “Girls with money, men with power. New money, old secrets. A group of fun-loving young American girls explode into the tightly corseted London season of the 1870s, kicking off an Anglo-American culture clash as the land of the stiff upper lip is infiltrated by a refreshing disregard for centuries of tradition. Sent to secure husbands and titles, the buccaneers’ hearts are set on much more than that, and saying ‘I do’ is just the beginning…”

The series stars Kristine Froseth as Nan St. George, Alisha Boe as Conchita Closson, Josie Totah as Mabel Elmsworth, Aubri Ibrag as Lizzie Elmsworth, Imogen Waterhouse as Jinny St. George, and Mia Threapleton as Honoria Marable. Mad Men star Christina Hendricks plays Mrs. St. George and the cast is rounded out by a series of handsome young British actors playing the ladies’ would-be suitors. Josh Dylan is Lord Richard Marable, Guy Remmers is the newly named Theo, Duke of Tintagel, Matthew Broome is Guy Thwarte, and Barney Fishwick as Lord James Seadown.

This, of course, isn’t the first adaptation of Wharton’s unfinished novel. The BBC made a controversial mini-series in the 1990s starring Carla Gugino and Mira Sorvino in the roles now inhabited by Froseth and Boe. The show received criticism for its “happily ever after” ending for Nan, which seemed opposed to Wharton’s dark and tetchy take on the story. Apple TV+’s version is intended to be an on-going series, clearly taking a cue from Masterpiece on PBS’s Sanditon — another period drama based on a literary icon’s last unfinished work.

The first three episodes of The Buccaneers will premiere on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, November 8, with new episodes premiering weekly until the season finale drops on Wednesday, December 13.