While Will is happily married to Clemence Poesy’s lovely Stella and ideologically-opposed to Cora (“I’d rather believe in a creature I’ve seen than an invisible God,” she declares early on, while he preaches that “fear is where God lives”), their intellectual debates, insatiable curiosity, and heartfelt concern for one another’s inner turmoil draw them closer.

He’s a brooding figure of strained stoicism and trenchant faith, the pillar of a community whose God-fearing populace – whipped into a frenzy by paranoiac Father Matthew (Mike Jibson) – believe the Devil’s upon them, showing a vulnerability in Hiddleston that we’ve scarcely seen him play before. What Cora doesn't count on when she arrives is meeting William. And so, with Socialist nanny Martha (a spirited Hayley Squires) and maverick heart surgeon and confidante Luke Garrett (a creepy Frank Dillane – he’s just too Tom Riddle) in tow, Cora and Frankie head for the coast.Ĭlio Barnard’s first foray into TV is ultimately every bit as enthralling, meticulously detailed, and beautifully human as her big screen offerings. For another, they offer an opportunity for her to leave the city and start afresh with son Frankie after her abusive husband’s death. For one thing, they represent a chance to pursue her paleontological passions, following in archeologist Mary Anning’s footsteps.

For Cora, a woman ahead of her time who’s brought to life with ingenue-esque curiosity, flinty determination, snazzy trousers, and a superb British accent by a mercurial Danes, the rumours of the Blackwater beast are exciting. Split in setting between the hustle and bustle of the Big Smoke and the rural, almost arcane village of Aldwinter – a place where sea, land, and sky blur in a portentously shot, foggy haze – the series centres on Claire Danes’ naturalist Cora Seaborne and Tom Hiddleston’s reverend William Ransome.

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