Angus Pigott
In fact, the entire tone of the show, from the glossy, vibrant design, to the experimental costumes of Giovanni Lepari, to the Gen Z soundtrack, is heightened and stylised.
However, where the show becomes a little grating is in its determination to prove just how feminist it is. Numerous recent period dramas have fallen into the trap of doing away with subtlety and subtext in favour of giving their heroines on-the-nose feminist speeches. Florence Pugh’s famous monologue in Little Women springs to mind.
“As a woman, I have no way to make money, not enough to earn a living and support my family… So don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you but it most certainly is for me,” says Pugh in the Greta Gerwig film.
Similarly, Nan delivers her own subtext-less speech about womanhood in the Victoria era. “They are like cattle,” she says of the debutantes at a ball in the first episode. “They are lovely, but they are also human beings who are funny and smart.”
It seems that The Buccaneers falls into the trap of so many recent period dramas — instead of trusting its audience to read into the subtleties and nuances of what the characters don’t say, it turns its heroine into a feminist warrior who, at 16, apparently sees the sexism embedded into Victorian society with the clarity of a woman in 2023.
Apple TV
Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks as Nan’s mother and His Dark Material’s Simone Kirby as the governess, Miss Laura Testvalley stand out as some of the few actors in the show who really capture the subtle, underhanded manoeuvring of the the members American society in the 1800s, captured so famously in Waugh’s novels.
While The Buccaneers may not be everyone, it will definitely be for lots of people — if you’re a fan of the not-so-straight period dramas of the ilk of Bridgerton and Persuasion, The Buccaneers will be right up your alley. It is essentially, The Summer I Turned Pretty with a few old-fashioned words, Victorian-ish clothes and a girl gang who all seems as though they’ve just finished scrolling TikTok.
The first three episodes of The Buccaneers are streaming on AppleTV+ from 8 November, with further episodes released weekly.