'The Luminaries' is a Lush But Ultimately Empty Period Tale
On paper, a period drama set in nineteenth-century New Zealand during the height of the gold rush feels fresh and different, precisely the sort of story we should see more of in a television landscape that's too-often obsessed with tales of Regency England. Yet, instead of being an exciting new addition to the genre, the new Starz series The Luminaries ultimately squanders these gifts, resulting in a bland, ultimately forgettable six-hour story that often feels much longer. (Interminable was the word I almost used there.)
An adaptation of Eleanor Cotton's ambitious 2013 novel of the same name, the story of The Luminaries is a dense and complicated tale, touching over a dozen major characters and incorporating everything from romance and mystery to murder and the supernatural. But the series never quite manages to construct a cohesive whole out of these many disparate pieces and struggles to make viewers care about its characters.
Ostensibly, the story follows Anna Wetherell (Eve Hewson) and Emery Staines (Himesh Patel), two passengers who meet onboard a ship to New Zealand in 1865, both seeking their fortunes on the island. But the show's larger plot unfolds in two parallel timelines, one that follows the fresh off the boat pair and another, set a year later, in which Emery has disappeared and Anna is being held on suspicion of murder, but cannot recall the events of the night about which she is being questioned.
