Television series

The Essex Serpent

Name: The Essex Serpent
Genre: Drama
Released: 2022
Cast: Claire Danes, Tom Hiddleston, Frank Dillane, Hayley Squires, Clémence Poésy

A Victorian-era drama about a widowed naturalist investigating a sea serpent legend in rural Essex. It's a slow-burn period piece that prizes atmosphere and complex emotional entanglement over plot momentum. For viewers who love character-driven stories, gorgeous cinematography, and the particular melancholy of 19th-century English settings.

TVMaze rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love slow-burning Victorian period dramas where the pleasure lies in sharp, witty conversation between two stubborn minds and in the gothic mood of a marsh-bound village.

Skip it if you want brisk plotting or a monster that appears on screen, since the serpent stays mostly rumour and the six episodes move at a measured, talky pace.

What it asks of you: Six episodes of roughly 48 minutes each, so an evening or two of unhurried attention, with long quiet stretches of atmosphere and dialogue that rewards patience.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Miniaturist2017

Dutch Golden Age Amsterdam, a mysterious marriage, secrets unfurling through objects. Like The Essex Serpent, it builds dread from intimacy rather than action, with immaculate production design that becomes a character itself.

But Very slow. Long stretches where almost nothing happens, and the payoff asks you to piece things together rather than spelling them out.

Gentleman Jack2019

A lesbian landowner in 1830s Yorkshire navigating love, property, and social propriety with wit and intelligence. Shares The Essex Serpent's blend of romance, class consciousness, and the thrill of a woman thinking her own thoughts in a restrictive era.

But The first season's plotting can feel scattered. Some viewers find the tone switches between comedy and drama jarring.

The Nightingale2018

A French-occupied village during WWII; a woman's survival and resistance. Like The Essex Serpent, it finds profound human complexity in constraint, with cinematography that makes every frame feel like a painting.

But Graphically violent and emotionally brutal. Not a comforting watch, and some pacing issues in the middle act.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Essex Serpent

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Ghost Story2017

Both use landscape and place as emotional cores rather than settings; both find the uncanny in the ordinary; both suggest that what we see and what we feel might be measuring different realities.

A man haunts his house after death; his widow grieves; we watch time collapse into melancholy. Shot almost entirely in 4:3 ratio with minimal dialogue. It sounds abstract but it's devastatingly human—about how places hold us, how loss warps time.

But Deliberately experimental and slow to the point of frustration for many. A sequence involving a woman eating pie will test your patience. Not a narrative; an experience.

Godless2017

A Nevada mining town run by women, a stranger with a past, violence waiting in the wings. Shares the provincial tension and moral ambiguity; trades period detail for stylized Western but maintains that sense of community judgment.

But The Netflix miniseries format sometimes overcompresses emotional beats. Feels slightly more conventional than The Essex Serpent.

All the Light We Cannot See2023

A blind French girl and a German soldier in occupied France; intimacy forged across impossible circumstances. Both are about how people connect across ideological divides, told through gorgeous, melancholic cinematography.

But Extensively adapted; lacks some of the novel's interiority. And the non-linear structure occasionally feels like it's working harder than necessary.

The Alienist2018

1890s New York, a female psychologist joining a murder investigation, period detail that crackles with research. Shares the intellectual female protagonist and the marriage of science with Gothic atmosphere.

But Darker and more violent than The Essex Serpent. The second season drops in quality significantly.

Parade's End2012

A British officer and a society woman entangled in love and class warfare across the Great War. Dense, literary adaptation of Ford Madox Ford; similar commitment to interior life and historical texture.

But Genuinely difficult to follow. Assumes familiarity with early 20th-century British social codes and the novel itself.

Tipping the Velvet2002

Victorian London, a young woman discovering love and independence, lush production. Queer period drama that moves through Sapphic desire with the same sensory richness The Essex Serpent brings to landscape.

But Some dated early-2000s television craft. The pacing in later episodes becomes uneven.

Jamaica Inn2014

Cornish smugglers, a young woman caught between worlds, Gothic undertones and moral murk. Similar provincial darkness and the sense that civilization is thinner than we pretend.

But Daphne du Maurier's plot is frankly melodramatic. Some viewers will find it overwrought where The Essex Serpent is restrained.

Stalker1979

Both use the prospect of a marvel (serpent, mysterious room) as a mirror for characters' inner lives; both suggest the legend might be real because we need it to be; both trust the viewer to sit with ambiguity rather than resolve it.

A Soviet science-fiction film about a guide leading two men into a mysterious zone. Not about spectacle—it's about how desire warps perception, how faith and doubt intertwine. Hypnotic, philosophical, visually austere. Completely reframes what speculative drama can do.

But Russian cinema from 1979; very long, very slow, no action. Requires active intellectual engagement. The print quality on available versions can be rough. If you want plot resolution, this will infuriate you.