When it comes to creating a sweeping historical romance and sustaining it over the course of a season of prestige TV, a pretty good starting point is to adapt a classic novel. So many of the most popular and enduring stories ever told have already been adapted, of course, but that doesn't mean they're not ripe for a new version with modern techniques and sensibilities applied.
MGM+ seems to be taking that approach, anyway, given that it's just unveiled a pretty stellar-looking adaptation of Charles Dickens' seminal A Tale of Two Cities, one of the most popular novels ever and a really compelling story. Anyone who's read Dickens knows that he does do plot really well, after all – it's not all just pretentious literary stuff. The show's first trailer underlines that.
It introduces us to Kit Harington in the show's lead role as Sydney Carton, a London lawyer who's extremely gifted but struggling to find happiness. He's given the case of a lifetime when Lucie Manette walks into his office to hire him, with a brief that's almost impossibly complicated. She needs him to defend a young man, Charles Darnay, from charges that are difficult to dispute without getting into Paris, a city engulfed by the rising tide of revolution.
It's a timeless setup that's ironically extremely rooted in the politics and movements of its time, of course, which is probably why it's not a plot that's often been updated and moved into other locations. MGM+ is taking a traditionalist approach, too, with full period drama trappings and some lovely costumes.
Sydney's big problem, of course, is that as well as trying to build a hugely complicated case that could cause ripples in various societies, he's also falling for Lucie, whose heart might not be all that free to suitors. It's a beautiful and quite heart-wrenching love triangle, in short, and I won't spoil how it turns out.
The show looks pretty sumptuous and comes at a good time for MGM+, since it hasn't necessarily always managed to string together many eye-catching shows at the same time compared to bigger streamers like Netflix and Prime Video. This could be just the ticket to get people subscribing when it arrives on 6 September.
