The Buccaneers (TV Program)

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    For Christina Hendricks, Beauty Comes Down to Corsets and Molding

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    “If it’s a piece of furniture that looks like it could run away — it might have legs or hands — I probably want it,” said the actress, whose series “The Buccaneers” suits her vintage proclivities.After four seasons on the NBC crime caper “Good Girls,” Christina Hendricks was done with digging through trash bins and having guns held to her head.“I joked around, ‘Just fit me in a pretty dress on an antique sofa in a corset,’” she recalled. “‘I want it to be clean and I want it to be beautiful.’”Then along came “The Buccaneers,” an Apple TV+ drama inspired by the Edith Wharton novel but with a modern inflection, about five untraditional American girls who storm 1870s London in search of husbands and titles.“I feel like I almost manifested it,” said Hendricks, who plays Patricia St. George, the newly wealthy New Yorker who has two daughters in the running. “Even though the stakes are very, very high for Mrs. St. George, they’re social stakes rather than life and death.”As for those corsets, no problem. “Girl, after years and years of undergarments on ‘Mad Men,’ to me that’s like throwing on a T-shirt,” she said in a call from Dublin, where she’s shooting the comedy series “Small Town, Big Story,” before speaking about her fixations on Instagram ballet, vintage furnishings — and molding. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Watching Ballet on InstagramI grew up as a ballet dancer, and it was always a little bit of a heartbreak that I wasn’t able to continue it and pursue it as a career. And I certainly don’t have an opportunity to go and see ballet live very often. It started occurring to me that I could follow dance companies on Instagram and get this little bit of what I crave a few times a day.2Beaded Fringe LampsThere was a lamp artist named Kathleen Caid, and I collected quite a few of her lamps. They transport you to another time, almost immediately. There’s a romance about them, there’s a delicacy about them, and they also make everyone look beautiful in the room.3A Room With PersonalityIf someone has taken care and time to make their room reflect who they are, I’m always impressed with that. I would say my style is sort of vintage eclectic. There’s some deco, there’s some Victorian, there’s a lot of whimsy in my home. We always joke that if it’s a piece of furniture that looks like it could run away — it might have legs or hands — I probably want it.4People-Watching at the MallYou get all sorts of people there for all sorts of reasons. I just love that no matter what state you’re in — or if you’re homesick or just need something familiar — you go into a mall and you could be in Anywhere, USA.5Dog WalksI love that it’s their favorite thing to do, and they seem to be peacocking and strutting down the street. But I also love my interaction with the parents. I immediately look at the dogs and I start talking to the dog in a cute voice, which doesn’t go over very well in Dublin, by the way.6Female Singer-SongwritersJoni Mitchell was the first, and then Kate Bush and Tori Amos. Now it’s Angel Olsen and Margaret Glaspy and Sharon Van Etten. Sometimes I feel like they’re speaking for me, or that there’s a bit of pretend, like you wish you were up onstage with that guitar. The poetry that they’re able to write, it’s a bit of a fantasy.7Spaghetti From a Box, Sauce From a JarThis is my absolute comfort food. If I’m happy, if I’m down, if I don’t know what I want, it will always hit the spot. Sometimes I add toppings — a little blob of goat cheese, some olives. It will always, no matter what, be my favorite dish.8MoldingAnything that was built before 1930, I’m a fan of, and I do find myself walking into modern rooms or spaces thinking, “Now all they had to do was add molding and this room would be warm. Why would they not have done that?” I’m impressed with the details that someone would take care of before the furniture came in to make a beautiful space. But to me a room is not a finished room without molding.9Dressing for the OccasionI have a great appreciation for when someone dresses for the room or the building or the country. I love the attention to detail and the sense of fun. It gives me something to get excited about and a little bit of inspiration for the night. I need maybe a bit of a costume in a way.10Untamed FlowersWhen I moved to England, it was the first time that I saw these wild arrangements with fresh herbs and berries spilling over. It took my absolute breath away. They indulged in the wildness of it, as if you tripped on a stone on a walk and grabbed what was in your hand and came up with brambles and flowers all mixed together. It felt so Green Gables, so romantic. More

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      ‘The Buccaneers’ Arrives With More Arrivistes

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      This Apple TV+ drama joins HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” back for its second season, in portraying the late 19th-century collision of old money and new.A newly moneyed woman in Gilded Age New York is desperate to gain the acceptance of the aristocracy. So she schemes to get the ultimate symbol of old money approval: a box at the exclusive Academy of Music. When she is denied, she helps spearhead the construction of a new see-and-be-seen cultural playground, the Metropolitan Opera House. Take that, aristocracy.Welcome to the second season of HBO’s opulent drama “The Gilded Age,” a series laden with emblematic showdowns between the gaudy arrivistes and the idle drawing-room class. By chance, “The Gilded Age,” which returned last week, is back just ahead of “The Buccaneers,” a new series on Apple TV+ that is set amid the same late 19th-century collision of old money and new, robber barons and debutante balls, gold diggers and status obsession.“The Buccaneers,” which premieres Wednesday, sends its wealthy but not sufficiently connected young ladies, their frocks and their deeply insecure parents all the way to London, skipping the middleman of old American money and going right to the source in search of marriageable dukes and lords. As you might imagine, culture clashes and broken hearts ensue.Donna Murphy as Mrs. Astor, left, and Carrie Coon as Bertha Russell, based on real women like Alva Vanderbilt, in “The Gilded Age.”Barbara Nitke/HBOTV’s Gilded Age dramas are somehow both alluring and repellent. It’s fun to watch ugly Americans make like combative peacocks. And the social dynamics seem to resonate in the 21st century, even if the details feel exotic and unattainable.“Hierarchy of classes is something that people seem to be more preoccupied with right now than at other times in the past,” said Esther Crain, the author of the lavishly illustrated “The Gilded Age in New York” and creator of the historical website Ephemeral New York, in a phone interview. “There’s this vast gulf between the very rich and everyone else, with a vanishing middle class. This really echoes the Gilded Age.”The “Gilded Age” opera house showdown echoes a pitched battle from the end of Season 1, in which Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), the Academy of Music snub victim, hosts a buzzy ball at her palatial home for her teen daughter. She invites her daughter’s friend, whose mother, Mrs. Astor (Donna Murphy), is the unofficial gatekeeper of the old-money elite. But then the gatekeeper snubs the social climber, who subsequently disinvites the gatekeeper’s daughter. The chess game is on, and the children are the pawns.In her book, Crain details the historical events behind both the music hall duel and the dance dust-up. In real life, it was Alva Vanderbilt who hosted a “fancy dress” masquerade ball in 1883, and who snubbed Mrs. Astor’s daughter, Caroline, prompting Mrs. Astor to show contrition to her nouveau riche rival. The showdown was seen as a major victory for new money over old.In actual late 19th-century New York, Alva Vanderbilt was a new-money upstart.Library of CongressCaroline Schermerhorn Astor represented the old guard of New York society.Wikimedia CommonsThe new rich, based in the Fifth Avenue mansions of Manhattan, were largely a product of the Civil War and new fortunes made in the railroad, copper, steel and other industries. (Bertha’s husband, George Russell, played by Morgan Spector, is a railroad tycoon who finds himself dealing with labor issues in Season 2.)Unlike the old-money aristocracy who traced their wealth to their European ancestors, the new rich thrived in industry and flaunted their wealth, much to the old rich’s disgust and chagrin.“They thought, ‘We’re Americans, we’re the new guys, we’ve got something new to sell in this world, and we have a place here,’” said the “Gilded Age” creator Julian Fellowes in a video interview from his home in London. “For me, the 1870s and 1880s was when modern America found itself. The new people building their palaces up and down Fifth Avenue were doing it the American way. This was an American culture — a new way of being rich, a new way of being successful.”Of course, the new rich could also be reckless and dangerous. In Season 1 of “The Gilded Age,” George, who Fellowes modeled on the railroad magnate Jay Gould, drives a corrupt alderman to suicide. He lives not just to defeat his opponents, but to crush them and their families. For him and his ilk, capitalism is a blood sport.Alisha Boe and Josh Dylan in “The Buccaneers,” inspired by real-life “dollar princesses” who married into titled European families.Apple TV+The games are a little different (if only slightly less brutal) in “The Buccaneers,” which is based on an unfinished novel by Edith Wharton. Looked down upon by the New York aristocracy and seeking suitable husbands, five young nouveau riche women high-tail it to London, where they and their financial resources are coveted by title-rich but cash-poor families. Nan (Kristine Froseth) is courted by a sensitive duke. Conchita (Alisha Boe) has a frisky marriage with a lord, whose parents are monstrous, anti-American snobs. All have romantic escapades that are, in many ways, brazenly transactional.“The girls’ mothers are coming over to London in order to effectively sell their girls into the aristocracy,” Katherine Jakeways, the series’s creator, said in a video interview from her London home. “And the aristocracy are welcoming them with open arms because they’ve got roofs to mend.”Added Beth Willis, an executive producer, from her home in Scotland: “How lonely that would be for so many of them. In America they might speak up a bit more at the dining table. They sometimes had their own money. And to come over to England and find these freezing cold houses with roofs literally falling in and being treated like a cash point must have just been awful.”Here, too, there is historical precedent. In one example, the socialite Consuelo Vanderbilt, of the shipping-and-railroad Vanderbilt family, married the ninth Duke of Marlborough, becoming perhaps the best known of what were called the “dollar princesses.”“Some of these marriages were arranged and didn’t end happily, but others did end happily,” said Hannah Greig, a historical consultant for “The Buccaneers.” “Sometimes the origins of the marriage were forgotten, and it became a love story. History offers lots of examples that you can draw on, for all of the different experiences that we see in ‘The Buccaneers.’”Both series include characters representative of people who existed in Gilded Age society, even if they were under-acknowledged at the time. In “The Buccaneers,” Mabel (Josie Totah) is torn between a marriage of convenience, to a man, and a romance of passion, with her friend Conchita’s new sister-in-law (Mia Threapleton). In “The Gilded Age,” the old-money Oscar Van Rhijn (Blake Ritson) carries on a passionate affair with John Adams, a scion of the presidential dynasty, all the while plotting his own marriage of convenience (and wealth) with the Russells’ debutante daughter, Gladys (Taissa Farmiga). (In a refreshing twist, the most avid gold diggers in both series are men.)Denée Benton stars in “The Gilded Age” as a member of New York’s Black elite, working with the journalist T. Thomas Fortune, played by Sullivan Jones.Barbara Nitke/HBOOne of the central characters in “The Gilded Age” is Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), a representative of 19th-century New York’s Black elite. At odds with her tradition-minded druggist father, Peggy goes to work for the real-life pioneering Black journalist T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones) and blazes her own trail, even as she faces down racism in her everyday life.Peggy’s story line gives the series a chance to look at issues of inequality that festered beneath the surface of the Gilded Age.“This season especially we see questions about the direction of Black America,” said Erica Dunbar, a Rutgers University history professor and “Gilded Age” historical consultant, in a video interview. “It’s a theme that still exists. What is the best way to move forward for a group of people who have already been marginalized or oppressed for hundreds of years at this point?”It all unfolds against a bloodless but volatile civil war between those who have been rich a long time and their freshly minted competition. The aristocracy’s view of the barbarians at the gate can be summed up by Agnes Van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), who has no interest in letting the newbies crash the party: “You shut the door, they come in the window.”But this is a fight Agnes won’t win. She can lock her windows, but the Metropolitan Opera House is coming soon. Despite the pitched battles of yore, if there’s one thing we’ve learned since it’s that money is money. And those who have the most generally have the upper hand, no matter the source of their riches. More

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      Best Movies and TV Shows Streaming in November: ‘Invincible,’ ‘Fargo’ and More

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      The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony will be live-streamed, and “Julia,” “Fargo” and more return. “The Buccaneers” is among the new series out this month.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of November’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Invincible’ Season 2, Part 1Starts streaming: Nov. 3Season 1 of this ultraviolent superhero cartoon (based on a comic book series by “The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman) introduced the title character: a teenager still developing and honing the superpowers he inherited from his space-alien father. Steven Yeun voices Invincible, a.k.a. Mark Grayson, who at the end of last season learned that his dad, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), had been serving as one of the Earth’s protectors while secretly paving the way for a future invasion by his own planet’s people. Season 2 picks up in the aftermath of that revelation, as Mark and his fellow heroes face a series of new supervillains while also strategizing for Omni-Man’s possible return. Though “Invincible” has dark moments, the show’s overall vibe is bright and entertaining, with enough nods to classic superhero tropes to please devoted comics readers.Also arriving:Nov. 10“007: Road to a Million” Season 1“Dina Hashem: Dark Little Whispers”Nov. 14“Trevor Wallace: Pterodactyl”Nov. 17“Ex-mas”“Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story”“Twin Love” Season 1Nov. 21“Bye Bye Barry”Nov. 29“Pretty Hard Cases”Anna Sawai in “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.”Diyah Pera/Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘The Buccaneers’ Season 1Starts streaming: Nov. 8Based on Edith Wharton’s final novel — left unfinished when she died in 1937 — “The Buccaneers” explores the flowering of the late-19th-century American aristocracy. Like the book, the series is about a group of wealthy young women who go to London to take part in the debutante season, invited by some established British families who want to lure these ladies (and their money) into marriages with cash-poor dukes and lords. Kristine Froseth takes the series’ lead as Nan St. George, the brightest of the Americans, who is supposed to be waiting in line for a husband behind her sister, Jinny (Imogen Waterhouse), but who instead finds herself courted by two men — Guy (Matthew Broome) and Theo (Guy Remmers) — who find her independence refreshing.‘For All Mankind’ Season 4Starts streaming: Nov. 10This terrific alternate-history science-fiction TV series had an uncharacteristically shaky third season, with its thrilling outer-space action — set mostly on Mars — butting up against some much drearier relationship melodrama. Season 4 resets “For All Mankind” a bit, introducing new characters and kicking off a new story, set in the 2000s. These episodes see multiple private and government space agencies working together on ambitious areas of exploration, including tapping asteroids for their mineral resources. At the same time, issues with the existing infrastructures on the Moon and Mars create a fresh set of practical problems for our heroes to solve. Newcomers to the cast include Toby Kebbel as a former oil-rigger looking for work away from Earth and Daniel Stern as a former corporate chief executive trying to bring efficiency to NASA.‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Season 1Starts streaming: Nov. 17This first live-action TV series set in the recent “Godzilla” and “King Kong” movies’ “MonsterVerse” divides its action between two eras: the 1950s, when the existence of giant creatures is still a closely guarded secret, and the present, where some cities have built underground shelters to withstand Godzilla attacks. Anna Sawai plays Cate, who goes looking for the truth about her father’s connection to the mysterious monster-studying Monarch agency. Wyatt Russell and Kurt Russell both play Lee Shaw, who became involved with Monarch as a U.S. soldier in the 1950s — and who a half-century later may be the only one who can help Cate. The creator Chris Black, who developed the show with the writer Matt Fraction, uses footage from the MonsterVerse films to add a sense of scope and awe to a series that is as much about the humans than it is about the big beasts looking to stomp them.Also arriving:Nov. 3“Fingernails”Nov. 22“The Velveteen Rabbit”Disney+New to Disney+‘The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony’Starts streaming: Nov. 3After years of HBO airing a recorded and edited version of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s annual induction ceremony, this year Disney+ has the rights to the event, and will be broadcasting it live and uncut. The 2023 inductees, some of whom will be performing, include Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Chaka Khan, Willie Nelson and Rage Against the Machine. Presenters include Carrie Underwood, Common, Ice-T, Queen Latifah and Sia. These ceremonies do last a while, but they also tend to be full of emotional moments and genuine surprises, so for pop music buffs who can’t see the show in person, this is a rare chance to watch the action unfold as it happens — and then to watch it again later, in the Disney+ catalog.Also arriving:Nov. 1“Behind the Attraction” Season 2“The Three Detectives”Nov. 8“Daddies on Request” Season 2“The Santa Clauses” Season 2Nov. 17“Dashing Through the Snow”Nov. 23“The Naughty Nine”Emma Corrin and Harris Dickinson in “A Murder at the End of the World.”Christopher Saunders/FXNew to Hulu‘A Murder at the End of the World’Starts streaming: Nov. 14The writer-director-producer team of Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling are best-known for their Netflix supernatural mystery series “The OA,” which was canceled before Batmanglij and Marling could finish the story. They are staying in the same genre for this mini-series, which puts the duo’s usual spacey spin on the “country house murder mystery” plot. Clive Owen plays an eccentric tech billionaire who invites a group of influential thought leaders to his magnificent resort hotel in an icy wasteland. The one guest who does not seem to fit in with the rest is Darby Hart (Emma Corrin), a skilled hacker and amateur detective who wrote a popular true crime book. When someone on the property turns up dead, Darby has to find the killer and also convince her fellow partygoers that something strange is going on — all while she reckons with some secrets from her own past.‘Fargo’ Season 5Starts streaming: Nov. 22After a long layoff, Noah Hawley’s offbeat crime series “Fargo” is back, with 10 more episodes set (very loosely) in the same blood-spattered “Minnesota nice” reality as Joel and Ethan Coen’s Oscar-winning 1996 movie. Previous seasons took place in 1950, 1979, 2006 and 2010. The fifth season takes place in 2019, and stars Juno Temple as Dot, a seemingly ordinary housewife who gets in trouble with the law and sees her shady past catching up to her, in the form of an authoritarian right-wing sheriff (Jon Hamm) determined to catch her. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Dot’s mother-in-law, an icy collection agency magnate who usually leans on her lawyer (Dave Foley) to get her family members out of trouble — but who has no idea what she is dealing with in the sweet but deadly Dot.Also arriving:Nov. 1“Arthdal Chronicles: The Sword of Aramun”“Black Cake”“A Christmas Frequency”“Reporting for Christmas”Nov. 2“Pam’s Garden of Eden” Season 2“Magic Mike’s Last Dance”Nov. 3“L.A. Law” Seasons 1-8“Quiz Lady”Nov. 6“JFK: One Day in America”Nov. 8“Vigilante” Season 1Nov. 9“The Croods: Family Tree” Season 8“The League”Nov. 13“The Lady Bird Diaries”Nov. 15“Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story”Nov. 16“Black Ice”“Drive with Swiss Beatz”“The Secret Life of Dancing Dogs”Nov. 20“Incredible Animal Journeys”“The Last Rider”“My Hero Academia” Season 6, Part 2Nov. 21“Obituary” Season 1Nov. 26“Faraway Downs”Nov. 29“The Artful Dodger” Season 1Nov. 30“A Compassionate Spy”“Wild Crime” Season 3Sarah Lancashire and David Hyde Pierce in Season 2 of “Julia.”Sebastein Gonon/MaxNew to Max‘Julia’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 16Season 1 of this delightful biographical dramedy was one of last year’s unexpected TV gems, thanks in large part to Sarah Lancashire’s luminous performance as the boisterous, can-do cooking instructor Julia Child, coupled with David Hyde Pierce’s warm, wry take on her supportive husband, Paul. The first season was all about how the Childs committed their time, energy and money toward realizing their dream of creating a public television show that could demystify and popularize French food. In Season 2, Julia has become an unlikely celebrity, and she and Paul have to fight to maintain the quality of their show while all the people who doubted them before come running to cash in on their success.Also arriving:Nov. 3“Scent of Time”Nov. 7“Stand Up & Shout: Songs from a Philly High School”Nov. 8“You Were My First Boyfriend”Nov. 11“Albert Brooks: Defending My Life”Nov. 13“Love Has Won”Nov. 14“How We Get Free”Nov. 28“South to Black Power”Nov. 30“Bookie” Season 1David Oyelowo in “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.”Emerson Miller/Paramount+New to Paramount+ with Showtime‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’Starts streaming: Nov. 5The first installment of a new true crime anthology series — with each season telling the story of some famous cop or crook — “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” stars David Oyelowo as Reeves, the western hero who in his life went from being enslaved on a Texas plantation to serving with distinction as a U.S. Marshal. Oyelowo is also an executive producer (as is the “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan) on this historical drama that stretches across decades, covering an eventful life that overlapped with some of the biggest social changes in America: from the end of the Civil War to the expansion of the frontier. Created by the writer-producer Chad Feehan, this first season of “Lawmen” looks at classic Western mythology through different eyes, considering what ideals like freedom and justice mean to someone born in chains.‘The Curse’Starts streaming: Nov. 10The comedian Nathan Fielder has spoofed reality TV throughout his career, and especially in his series “Nathan for You” and “The Rehearsal.” His latest project — cocreated with the filmmaker Benny Safdie — takes a different approach to the genre, via a fictional story with a serrated satirical edge. Fielder plays Asher Siegel, who alongside his wife, Whitney (Emma Stone), is shooting an HGTV show called “Flipanthropy,” in which the couple helps the struggling residents of a small New Mexico town move into cutting-edge eco-friendly houses. When a young street peddler puts a curse on the stingy Asher, the Siegels’ marriage and television collaboration both begin to suffer. A commentary on the contrived rosiness of home improvement shows, “The Curse” also touches on gentrification, xenophobia, and the deep need of some do-gooder types to be lauded for their largess, even when their efforts hurt more than help.Also arriving:Nov. 1“Ink Master” Season 15Nov. 7“De La Calle”Nov. 9“Colin from Accounts”Nov. 22“Good Burger 2” More