Apple TV+’s The Essex Serpent is that rare, mythical beast: an adaptation that feels just as compelling as its celebrated source material. 

Based on Sarah Perry’s bestselling book, the series stars Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston and is set in Victorian England. Danes are heartbreakingly wonderful as Cora Seaborne, a recently widowed amateur naturalist who relocates to Essex to investigate rumours of a monstrous serpent. 

Cora is traumatised by years of abuse at the hands of her sadistic late husband: a coiled (perhaps even serpentine) scar on her neck is revealed to have been branded into her skin by a hot, curved poker, an incident we witness in a particularly harrowing flashback. 

Moments after his funeral, we see Cora impulsively throw away the earrings she’s wearing, sending them down the River Thames, before explaining that her husband often bought her jewellery (in another flashback, we see him strangle her with a glittering necklace). 

However, Cora is by no means friendless: she is already being courted by her late husband’s doctor, the pioneering Luke, and she is loved by her loyal maidservant Martha. With the latter’s support, Cora makes the decision to reclaim her life and pursue her passion for natural history, starting with a trip to the Essex marshes to look into recent reports of a mythical serpent, which she believes to be some kind of Plesiosaur. 

Claire Danes (who was cast in the role of Cora after Keira Knightley bowed out) completely inhabits the role, giving the character energy and nerviness in addition to a bold physical presence, striding through the Essex mud as if it’s all her own.

Meanwhile, the series is beautiful to look at, in particular, the evocation of the bleak – but bewitching – wintry landscape Cora finds there.

Sometimes – as with many period dramas these days – you’ll find yourself squinting at the screen, trying to make out the details of a nighttime scene lit only by candlelight or flaming torches. Otherwise, many of the shots feel almost like stepping into a Victorian-era painting – although the series certainly doesn’t shy away from some of the grislier realities of everyday life, including skinned animals strung up to ward off the ‘beast’.

Cora finds Essex to be a superstitious place (“It’s witch-burning country,” Martha quips), and by no means welcoming: on a walk during her first day in the county, she comes across a man – covered in blood and mud – wrestling with a sheep stuck in the marsh.

She comes to his aid, but gets little thanks; as soon as he realises she’s a tourist hunting the ‘Essex Serpent’, he tells her to leave: “There’s nothing to see. Go home.”