Winter is Coming: Period Pieces for Snowbound Souls

With only a couple more of weeks of autumn to enjoy (and New Yorkers can’t complain, we’d had decent weather this fall) we must brace ourselves for more at-home nights, all bundled up, in front of tv screens. For us, historical fiction freaks, there will be no lack of good material to enjoy this cold season, starting with Ragnar’s sons wreaking havoc in Saxon land and further away, and ending with Tom Hardy and his ship of the damned, bound to a land where there is no “Taboo.”

End of November has had us reconnect with the dysfunctional family of Ragnar Lodbrok, or what’s left of it. Fans are either wondering which of her stepsons will do away with Lagertha, or are looking forward to Jonathan Rhys-Myers debut as Heathmund, the warrior-bishop that will give Ivar, the Boneless, some humble pie to eat, at least on the battlefield. To be quite honest since my favorite characters (Aslaug, Echbert and Helga) were killed, I only care to know what is Rollo up to in Paris and about Bjorn’s explorations in “sunny places.” November the 29^th will be the date for the “Vikings” to land on History Channel.

“Vikings” shall not be History’s only venture in historical fiction this winter. December 6^th will bring us the awaited arrival of “Knightfall,” a tale of the Templar Knights. Starring Tom Cullen as Sir Landry, a Templar Master, the story merges the last days of the Order of the Temple with the search for the Holy Grail. Combining fact and fiction, this series will take place in 1306, a year before the downfall of the Templars.  “Knightfall” pretends to show us how wealth, power and a clandestine lifestyle brought a tragic end to the powerful monastic order. The Templars harbored secrets, they knew too much, they represented a hazard for the Papacy as well as for the King of France.

Although we are still months away from the eight-season of  “Call the Midwife, ” PBS will bring us its Christmas 2017 special, appropriately on December 25^th. It will take place during the 1962 Big Freeze, the coldest Christmas in British history. Heavy blizzards had the country at a standstill, but as we know, you can’t put a standstill on labor. Chances are that the midwives will have to brave weather and waddle through snow to bring babies into the world.

New Year takes us back to Buckingham Palace to rejoin Victoria and Albert on a new season that will bring new babies and new troubles for the royal couple. Here are some spoilers:  Lord Melbourne departs for good, but the Queen of Thorns resurrects when Dame Diana “Olenna” Rigg joins the Queen’s entourage as a new lady of chamber. Albert will run into his old papa, but poor old Ernest will have his heart broken again by prudish Duchess of Sutherland. There will be romance upstairs and downstairs,  and even a hint of gay love among Victoria’s retainers. Season 2 of “Victoria” debuts on PBS, on January 14^th.

After New Year,  we can count on TNT to bring us the perfect historical thriller, “The Alienist, ”based on Caleb Carr’s bestseller . On January 22th  we’ll meet Dr. Lazlo Kreisler (Daniel Bruhl), proper Viennese psychiatrist,  who is summoned by Theodore Roosevelt (then Manhattan Police Commissioner) in turn-of-the-century New York to solve the crimes of an American Jack the Ripper. Dr. Kreisler will be assisted by crime reporter John Schuyler Moore (Luke Evans) and genteel secretary Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning).

FX just drops hints  that “Taboo” fans must translate. It may happen sometimes in  late February or perhaps in early March,  when snow is still on the ground. Then, we’ll get to know where James Keziah Delaney is bound with that crew of freaks he managed to wrangle up. Will the East India Company ever give up the Nootka Sound? Will Robert find out he is the cannibal’s son? Will James learn what made his late mother try to murder him? Is Zilpha, James sister-lover, truly dead? So much to know, please  don’t keep us waiting!

I don’t usually dwell in what the streaming world brings, but since I have become a crownie (e.g. one who is addicted to  “The Crown”), I might as well review Netflix’s basket of period pieces. November has started unloading it with the 4^th Season of “Peaky Blinders,”  in BBC, but Netflix will run it complete after December the 21th. For those of you who are following Jason “Drogo” Momoa’s adventures in fur trapping in Colonial Canada, you can enjoy the second season of “Frontier” after November the 24^th.

Michelle Dockery is really shaking Lady Mary’s shadow off her and she shows it by moving to the Far West, in “Godless,” Netflix new western. Set in New Mexico, “Godless” tells of a mining town where all miners are killed, and it is left to their widows to wear the pants and sling the guns, especially when marauding bandits lurk nearby. As of November 22, you can follow this seven-part series.

On December the 8^th, the second round of “The Crown” begins. Reconciliation and new babies are in store for Lilibet and her Duke (he will be called “Prince” at some point this season,  and his children will get his last name too). Nevertheless, hideous scandals will rock the monarchy. The troubles shall not come from within the royal family but from misguided ministers and their cabinets. Margaret, the family minx, will marry and settle down (of sorts), and Elisabeth II will entertain Jackie (Jodi Balfour) and President Kennedy (Charles C. Hall). Get ready to see Dexter playing Jack! This incoming season will dwell more on Philip’s early life, a subject that Peter Morgan, the brains behind “The Crown,” finds fascinating.

Netflix will go big time in January when it becomes a streaming platform for the hottest and most expensive series made in Germany.  Based on a historical whodunit series by Volker Kutscher, “Babylon Berlin” deals with the adventures of PTD sufferer and morphine addict, police Inspector Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch) who will solve crimes in Weimar Germany.

Now that sounds pretty much like Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series, right?  But even as a Kerr-Gunther fan, I must agree that something written by a German, in Goethe’s language and made in Der Vaterland is bound to be of better quality. Or so we hope. So far, the series has been available only to Sky’ subscribers (in Germany, Austria, Italy and the UK). Therefore, I’ll be looking forward to when Netflix decides to gift us with the properly subtitled version of “Babylon Berlin.”

Which one of these series will you be following?

Autumn in Period Drama Land: 2017 Fall Schedule

September is here. I never thought I would see another autumn in New York again. It’s such a gorgeous experience. And another gorgeous experience, for us period drama fans, is the cavalcade of historical fiction that will hit  our television screen and our nearby theaters, on this very fall.

Let us start with TV.  September 10, in Starz, marks our get-together with “Outlander”.  It is also a time of meetings in our favorite time-travel tale, when after twenty years of loveless marriage, now widowed Dr. Claire Randall comes across her eighteen-century husband, Jamie Fraser.

To those who have not read Voyager, the novel of which the third season is based, just know that Claire will travel to the past on Halloween. She will reunite with Jamie in Edinburgh, but twenty years have also gone by in Old Scotland. Claire will be less than happy after learning there have been other women and other children in Jamie’s life. The couple will reconcile and travel together to France and finally to the West Indies.

For those of us in the USA, who don’t stream, early autumn would give us the chance to catch up with old favorites and new period pieces. Ovation is bringing us the second season of  “Versailles” (September 30^th) and the debut in American TV of ”The Halcyon,” (October 2th).

After Minette’s death, Philippe D`Orleans,  is forced by his sovereign- brother to marry again. How will sweet, down-to-earth, Liselotte of Palatinate put up with a gay husband and his meddlesome lover? That is a question “Versailles” will have to answer. Courtiers are once again rebellious. Royal torturer Fabien Marechal will have his hands full, as he grows closer to girl-doctor Claudine, while spying and being intrigued by devious Madame de Clermont. Meanwhile, his liaison with scheming Madame de Montespan has clouded the King Sun’s intellect. History buffs know that this will lead to black masses, black magic, and black poison in Versailles.

They keep on trying to sell “The Halcyon” as the new “Downton Abbey,” but critics and clips tell me that is hardly the case. Yet as a WWII buff, I can’t stand missing a story about a ritzy London hotel during The Blitz.

On October 1th,  PBS brings us “ Poldark” in his third season. Captain Poldark and devoted Demelza will expand their family in different ways, but jealousy will take a toll on their marriage as Mrs. Poldark gets suspicious of Elizabeth’s premature baby. Dr. Enys will get married, but he’ll spend his honeymoon in a French jail. Ross will have to go to Revolutionary France to rescue his pal. New characters will join this Cornish romance as Elizabeth’s cousins and Demelza’s brothers join their lives.

October the 15^th is when we go back to the Greek islands with “The Durrels.”  I haven’t even seen the first season yet, but I saw and loved “My Family and Other Animals” so I know all about zoologist Gerald Durrell’s extravagant yet loving family. To make ends meet, Louisa Durrell takes her children to live in Corfu in the mid Thirties. There, young Gerry grows up unschooled, but learning a lot from the local fauna he collects, and that includes some fascinating humans.

November 23 will face us with the new “Anne of Green Gables.” Since I have decided that the original Anne grew up to become Catherine de Medici, I have no qualms with Ella Ballentine replacing Megan Fellows, in this new version of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s children classic. Oh, and to launch winter and to celebrate Christmas, we’ll get to see the  annual special of “Call the Midwife, ”on December 25^th.

We don’t have a date yet, but History Channel keeps on bombarding us with messages that “this fall” we’ll get to meet  “Knightfall.” I’m in a great mood to watch medieval feats, and I’m the first one to sign up for anything dealing with the Templars. Tom Cullen, formerly Lord Gillingham in “Downton Abbey, ” is Sir Landry, a Crusades veteran, bent into finding the Holy Grail, but does he have time to do it? The series is set in the days of Philippe Le Bel, and we all know what that king did to the Order of Knights of the Temple.

Cullen is also playing Guy Fawkes in the BBC baroque drama  “Gunpowder.” The new Targaryen in residence, Kit Harington, will be playing conspirator Robert Catesby who also happens to be the actor’s ancestor. Although it will be a while before we see it in America,  BBC is hoping to have it ready by November for British consumption.

And for us lucky bilinguals, Antena 3 is presenting (hopefully to American audiences too) a new miniseries this fall. “Tiempos de Guerra” (War Times). It takes place in an exotic locale and period, the Rif War,  in 1921. It chronicles the adventures of a bunch of aristocratic nurses sent to Morocco by order of Queen Victoria Eugenia, to tend the wounded soldiers. So, it’s going to be a sort of Iberian “Crimson Field.”

This autumn, TNT will air “The Alienist.” Based on Caleb Starr’s bestseller, it’s a detective story set in turn-of-the-century New York. After the police is unable to solve a series of murders that target “boy-whores,” Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt sets up a secret and unusual team. It is composed by journalist John Moore (Luke Evans), secretary Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning) and Viennese Dr. Lazlo Kreisler (Daniel Bruhl). Dr. Kreisler is a sort of Sherlock Holmes who will bring into detective work his psychiatric knowledge.

What about incoming projects? This past spring saw the shooting of the third season of “Versailles,” and Poldark and the Durrels have green light for future seasons. Orlando Bloom will head the cast of a Victorian fantasy called “Carnival Cross”; the filming of the new version of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair will begin this September; and a new version of Pride and Prejudice has been announced. Are we game for more Darcy and Lizzie? The answer is always a positive one.

 For those who like more modern times, Channel Four has announced the production of “Jerusalem,” a Cold War thriller set in England in 1945.  The Cold War has become part of period drama repertoire. Guillermo del Toro has also set his newest fantasy “The Shape of Water” on that milieu. By the way, "The Shape of Water"has just won the Golden Lion at the Venice Festival, so it's a must see film. 

And now we go to moving pictures.

Period Drama on the Silver Screen

Our first exciting news   is the release of pictures of  “Mary , Queen of Scots,” Michael Hirst’s follow- up to his Tudors and Elizabeths. In the latest contribution to the immortal Tudormania, “Vikings’ writer tackles the unhappy story of that mischievous Queen of Scots, and on the rebound, we get to see Cousin Bess. Saoirse Ronan is a strawberry blonde Mary Stuart, and Australian Margot Robbie is brick-topped Elizabeth Tudor.

Knowing how deprived us poor Downties are,  Julian Fellowes has finally announced that yes, he is bringing us the “Downton Abbey” movie. Lord Fellowes has apparently shelved his project (“The Gilded Age”) to do an American Downton Abbey. But he’s been busy. He recently adapted Agatha Christie’s Crooked House that introduces the audience to one of the writer’s lesser known detectives Charles Hayward, played by Max Irons, who is becoming an item in period pieces. The cast that encompasses big names from Glenn Close to Christina Kendrick, will be working on the first adaptation of one of Dame Agatha’s favorite works.

Fellowes has also adapted The Chaperone, based on Laura Moriarty’s bestseller, and chronicling the travel from her native Kansas to New York of the soon-to-be-legend, Louise Brooks.  But the future Lulu is saddled with a complete stranger as a chaperone. Haley Lou Richardson will play unconventional fifteen-year-old Brooks and Elizabeth McGovern—Lady Cora herself—will play her chaperone, the mysterious Cora Carlisle.

Talking about bestsellers, Tom Holland will play real-life hero Pino Lella in a film adaptation of Mark Sullivan’s Beneath a Scarlet Sky.  In this Second World War thriller, Holland will reenact Pino’s struggles in German-invaded Italy.  First rescuing Jewish children, then driving for a German general and finally working for the resistance.

Historical fantasies will be well represented with the aforementioned “Carnival Cross” and del Toro’s  “The Shape of Water,” but cinema is also planning to pay homage to the greatest master of epic fantasy. A biopic is in development about the life of J. R. R.  Tolkien. Little is known about the project, aside from the fact that Jennifer Lawrence playing Edith Bratt, Tolkien’s wife and muse.

While we wait for all these wonders, let’s check what we could see this fall on a theater near us. September has finally brought to America “The Viceroy’s House.” Gillian Anderson and Hugh Bonneville portray Lady Edwina and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy  of India. Alicia Vikander is a demure housewife in Seventeenth Century Holland,  who gets caught up  in adultery and the “Tulip Fever.”  September also marks the debuts of “Savage in the Rye,” the biopic of J. D. Salinger; and Dame Judi Dench recreates her Queen Victoria role in “Victoria and Abdul.”

We  also get the unusual treat of a Norwegian film. “The King’s Choice” covers the days in 1940 that took King Haakon to decide whether to stay and surrender Norway to the Nazis, or flee to England to continue his fight against Germany.

October offers us another biopic, “Marshall” based on Thurgood Marshall’s experiences as the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. Chadwick  “Black Panther” Boseman will play the judge. Kenneth Branagh’s much expected “Murder in the Orient Express” will be seen in November. Branagh is Hercule Poirot and his cast of suspects includes Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz.

November also brings us another tale of Churchill and World War Two. In “The Darkest Hour” Gary Oldman stands unrecognizable as the formidable Prime Minister. Dame Kristin Scott-Thomas is his devoted wife, and Lily James (who won’t miss a good period piece ) is his secretary.  The year will end with a historical  musical. Based on  Barnum, the Broadway classic, “The Greatest Showman” will have Hugh Jackman playing P.T. Barnum, Michelle Williams will be his wife, and Rebeca Ferguson (The White Queen) will be the renowned Swedish soprano, Jenny Lind.

So much variety! Have I skipped anything? Are there still period pieces on the making out there? Which one of those in my list are you looking forward to?