New Worlds Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

New Worlds Blu-ray Movie Review

Revolution Goes into Hiding

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 28, 2015

The immediate impetus for Acorn Media's release of the 2014 British miniseries New Worlds is that it stars Jamie Dornan, now famous as "Christian Grey" in the big-screen adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey. But viewers seeking a love story (with or without an S&M edge) should look elsewhere. There's romance in New Worlds, but it's only one thread in a historical tapestry woven through both England and its colonies across the Atlantic.

New Worlds is the second of two miniseries dealing, first, with the English Civil War that lasted from 1642 through 1651 and resulted in the beheading of King Charles I, and second, with the period known as the "Restoration" under his son, King Charles II, who vowed revenge against those responsible for his father's execution. The Devil's Whore, which featured Peter Capaldi (the current Dr. Who) as Charles I and Dominic West (The Wire) as Oliver Cromwell, dealt with the Civil War itself and was broadcast in November 2008. New Worlds is set over thirty years later, near the end of Charles II's reign.

As co-creator Peter Flannery (George Gently) notes in the extras, some eras of English history have been visited repeatedly, especially the Tudors (Henry VIII and Elizabeth II) and the Victorian era. But the Stuarts, including Charles I and II, have received less attention, even though it was their eras that saw the birth of the ideal of an independent republic that, a century later, would find its fullest expression in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. New Worlds charts the flow of those currents back and forth between Britain and her colonies in their earliest days.

New Worlds begins in 1680. Most of those responsible for the execution of King Charles I have been hunted down and executed, but a few remain at large, and Charles II (Jeremy Northam) is obsessed with exterminating all traces of "republican" (with a small "r") sentiment. His chief instrument is the merciless Judge Jeffreys (Pip Carter), a real historical figure. One of the loose ends that Jeffreys wants to tie up is Angelica Fanshawe, the heroine of The Devil's Whore, where she was played by Andrea Riseborough (Oblivion); here she is played by Eve Best (Nurse Jackie). Having narrowly escaped the civil war bloodbath, Angelica has since withdrawn into the country retreat of Fanshawe Hall, where she has tried to remain aloof from political strife with her husband, John Francis (Patrick Malahide), and daughter, Beth (Freya Mavor). Jeffreys sends Will Blood (James McCardle) to Fanshawe House as a spy, threatening to execute Will's father, Colonel Blood (Stanley Townsend), if the son does not find proof that Angelica is still aiding traitors to the crown.

Beth Fanshawe is currently reeling from the discovery that her father is not John Francis, as she has believed for her whole life. An exchange between her mother and a poacher (or so he seemed) has revealed to her that her real father was Edward Sexby, an opponent of the monarchy. Seeking the poacher in the surrounding forest for more information, she learns that his name is Abe (Dornan), who mocks Beth for romanticizing his life there. Does the pampered rich girl think she has found Robin Hood? As an antidote to any illusions, Abe shows her how the peasants who used to support themselves growing crops now labor in the clay pits of Mr. Hardwick (Michael Maloney), who supplies bricks to build new castles for the king. Hardwick has already struck a deal with Charles II to extend his domain to Fanshawe House, as soon as Judge Jeffreys has convicted Angelica Fanshawe.

As Beth learns more about her own background from her mother, whom she confronts, and about what is happening now, she becomes more inflamed with the ideals of freedom and democracy for which her parents fought when they were young. She and Abe cannot help but be drawn to each other, but theirs is a love that must exist primarily in absence and memory, as larger forces drive them apart.

An ocean away, another figure sought by Judge Jeffreys has taken refuge in the wilds of Massachusetts. The venerable William Goffe (James Cosmo), an unrepentant foe of the British monarchy, arrives in the frontier town of Hadley just in time to help the inhabitants repel a raiding party of Native Americans. To the town's inhabitants, he seems (literally) an angel sent from heaven. The town's young leader, Ned Hawkins (Joe Dempsie, Gendry in Game of Thrones), is especially grateful, as is Hope Russell (Alice Englert), the rugged pioneer woman on whom Ned has set his heart. Ned's father, John Hawkins (Michael McElhatton), is one of the founders of the Hawkins Bay Company, which sells parcels of land to settlers under a royal charter. How it acquires that land is the subject of a major subplot in New Worlds, and the issue becomes especially fraught when Judge Jeffreys' representative arrives in Boston, where the company is headquartered, with threats to have the king revoke its charter, unless the shareholders pledge their loyalty to the crown (and, just as importantly, send a share of their growing wealth back to England). These developments do not sit well with Ned and Hope, who have befriended Goffe and been influenced by his thinking—and also by their personal experiences of tyranny.

Any further description beyond this overview would be a disservice to viewers of New Worlds. Creators and writers Flannery and Martine Brant have so elaborately intertwined the fates of their young fictional protagonists with real historical events that the series delivers surprises in each of its four hour-long episodes. Some characters cross the Atlantic (a voyage of many weeks in that era), while others never leave the soil on which they were born. Both women are hemmed in by the customs, prejudices and restrictions of their era, but they also push back against them. Flannery and Brant cannot alter history, in which, for the short term, the monarchy prevailed against its opponents, but they have the advantage of knowing how the rebels' efforts played out over the long term. Thus, the final hour of the series includes a version of the infamous treason trial of Algernon Sidney (Donald Sumpter), where Judge Jeffreys used the accused's own writings advocating overthrow of the monarchy to satisfy the legal requirement of proving treason by two witnesses. Though not named in the series, the volume was entitled Discourses Concerning Government, and after Sidney's execution, it is distributed throughout Massachusetts. A fuse has been lit. It may take decades to burn, but we know that the explosion will eventually ignite.

New Worlds Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

New Worlds was shot by cinematographer David Raedeker with the Arri Alexa, which remains the preferred camera for British TV. In an unusual decision, the series has been formatted at 2.46:1, presumably in an effort to make it look more "cinematic". (If only more cable channels would embrace the same logic when airing widescreen films.) Acorn Media's pair of 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray discs, which were presumably sourced directly from digital files, reflect all the usual virtues of Alexa-originated material: superior detail, excellent sharpness without any digital harshness and solid blacks. The production design and post-production coloring emphasize earth tones, which is consistent with the pre-industrial setting. Forests are filled with deep greens, rich yellows and dark browns. Even the established towns of London and Boston reflect the fact that building materials are derived from the earth, as seen in Hardwick's primitive brick operation, with limited ability to alter their composition. Clothing is rough and primitive, and most people are dirty, at least by today's standards. The Alexa captures everything with its customary (and often unforgiving) clarity, and the Blu-ray image delivers it faithfully.

The first two episodes have been placed on a BD-25, with an average bitrate of 21.749 Mbps, which is adequate for digitally originated material. The last two, which are slightly longer, appear along with the extras on a BD-50, with an average bitrate of 27.643 Mbps, which is excellent. All four episodes are artifact-free.

New Worlds Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

New Worlds' 5.1 soundtrack has been encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA. The surrounds are notably active in forest scenes, where cries of birds and other wildlife convey the openness of the environment, and in locations like Boston harbor, which bustle with activity all around. The track's dynamic range is robust with a solid low end for the firing of muskets and a few scenes that include explosions and roaring flames. The dialogue is always clear, and the series has been scored with music that varies from rustic simplicity to formal elegance by Harry Escott (Shame and A Mighty Heart).

New Worlds Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All of the series-specific extras appear on disc 2.

• The People of the New Worlds (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:41): Dempsie, Englert, Mavor, Dornan, Pip Carter, James Cosmo and director Charles Martin discuss the challenges of playing period characters.



• Building the New Worlds (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:06): Art director Kevin Woodhouse, production designer Tom Bowyer and other members of the production team discuss recreating the past.



• History of the New Worlds (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:31): Creators/writers Brant and Flannery discuss the history of the period and their interest in writing about it. With additional comments from director Martin and various cast members.



• The World of VFX (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:22): Effects supervisor Gary Brown and producer Jonathan Knobel describe the role of CGI in recreating New Worlds' 17th Century setting. The illustrative example is the dock at Boston Harbor, for which the live-action element was shot in Bristol.



• Deleted Scene (1080p; 2.35:1; 2:04): This scene set in the Tower of London would have occurred near the beginning of part 1. I suspect that it was deleted because additional exposition would have been needed to make it less confusing.



• Photo Gallery (1080p; various; 1:03): A slideshow of production stills.



• Introductory Trailers: At startup disc 1 plays trailers for Acorn Media, The Fall and War and Peace, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

New Worlds Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Forget the dubious tie-in with Fifty Shades of Grey. Don't even focus on the two pairs of young lovers, whose stories are, to a much greater extent than the promotional campaign suggests, largely secondary to the grand sweep of New Worlds. What is notable and memorable about the series is how viscerally it conveys the feel of an era when the very notion of a democratic society was so radical that even whispering about it in private meant risking one's life. While the great powers of Europe were building empires, a small handful of passionate idealists kept alive a cause that would eventually topple the emperors. New Worlds gives a sense of what those idealists sacrificed—and also of some of the sins they committed along the way. Highly recommended.