Apple TV+ Sets November Premiere Date for Its Lavish New 'The Buccaneers' Adaptation

While the Tom Hiddleston-led The Essex Serpent was technically Apple TV+'s first foray into period storytelling, its forthcoming adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton's final unfinished novel, The Buccaneers, will be the streamer's first traditional costume drama. The series — which someone finally realized they just needed to call The Buccaneers instead of forever referring to it as a "Buccaneers-inspired" property — is set to officially hit our screens this November, and if its lavish first images are anything to go by, it will have been more than worth the wait.

The Buccaneers follows the adventures of a group of wealthy American heiresses on the hunt for respectability and social status among the titled but genteelly impoverished British aristocrats of the late nineteenth century. These young women, often the daughters of nouveau riche families whose wealth came from successful business ventures rather than old money inheritance, could provide these land-poor gentlemen with a much-needed cash infusion in return for the impressive titles and social legitimacy that come with lording it over such large estates.

Thanks to the 1995 BBC miniseries starring Carla Gugino, Alison Elliott, Rya Kihlstedt, and Mira Sorvino, this story will likely be familiar to many Masterpiece fans. And also because it's pretty much the basis for Lord and Lady Grantham's marriage on Downton Abbey. (Cora's family, the Levinsons, made a fortune in the dry goods industry, which made them very wealthy but not exactly respectable in the high society sense.)