The Luminaries

A young man and woman meet for the first time on board a ship bound for the new world. There is an instant and almost magical chemistry between them. Their story unfolds during the mid-19th century New Zealand gold rush. Before watching this six-episode series, I confess I was completely unaware that New Zealand had a gold rush.

Anna Wetherell (Eve Hewson) and Emery Staines (Himesh Patel) agree to meet again when they arrive but their plans are thwarted by nefarious means. Will they ever be reunited?

Sadly, I found Anna's fate very plausible. An attractive young woman, intelligent but illiterate, alone in a strange land with no money and no connections. Easy prey. Although Anna's dreams of starting a new life are dashed and she eventually succumbs to opium to cope with her circumstances, she never competey loses her inner strength even when she suffers a terrible personal tragedy.

Although Anna is the heroine of the story, we also follow the fortunes of Emery Staines as well as the characters Anna and Emery come into contact with. All of the actors give excellent performances but Eve Hewson is outstanding.

I loved it. Beautiful scenery and a terrific cast brought this dark fairytale to life. Some viewers found the time-jump aspect of this series difficult to follow. I did not have a problem with it.

Many of the reviews here state that the plot is hard to follow. I haven't read the book but from what I understand it requires the reader to be engaged and pay attention. This series requires the same. If you do pay attention to the smaller details, the time jumps isn't hard to follow at all. Actually, it really helps building up the mystery.

I absolutely loved the series and Eva Greens performance is truly amazing!

I have just finished watching the entire 6 part series. Yes the plot in the way it is presented is complex. We are presented with events and then history leading up to that event, more events and the histories leading up to those events, and so on. This makes for a complexity that requires some attention, although many hints are always on screen to tell us where in time each scene is located, past, recent past, and present. The complexity is a positive, but a casual viewer with the show on in the background with sparse attention paid to it will find it hard to follow the twists - you need to actually watch it.

It took me until the 3rd episode (first two with mild attention wandering) before I became absorbed, will probably watch again in a couple of weeks with fresh eyes.

Clever, a slow burn, this show is a bit of a gem. I would summarise it thus: Gold, greed, gowns (will make sense when watched), love, murder, mystery, mystique and revenge. A healthy dose of good viewing. I was sorry but also sated when it ended.

I was excited to watch this but after the second episode, found it hard to follow, the timeline was jumping all over the place, it would have been helpful to put dates on the scenes. I also found it a bit far fetched.The acting was very good though, as were the costumes and setting, so still worth watching.

The novel on which this series is based is sophisticated and the plot is complex. It is original and mature writing (it won the prestigious Man Booker Prize) but it's definitely not easy reading. Given this, it's asking too much to expect mere entertainment from a TV adaptation. The story is too complex to be reduced to the level of simplicity that many people want and expect. The novel demands active involvement for it to be rewarding; the TV version likewise. It's near-impossible to reduce a nearly 1,000 page novel to six hours of television. If this sounds like justification for the TV version's complexity, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. It's certainly isn't easy going, but it is rewarding if you're prepared to provide input yourself - just like the novel.