Review: 'The Buccaneers' may be more 'Bridgerton' than Edith Wharton

Set in the 1870s, Edith Wharton's final novel, "The Buccaneers," concerns the adventures of five rich — but not the right sort of rich — young American women who, finding the doors of New York society closed to them, journey to London, where impoverished aristocrats are eager to trade Yankee money for British titles. You may recognize that not uncommon convention from "Downton Abbey," whose Earl of Grantham married American heiress Cora Levinson to keep his estate alive.

Fans of Wharton hoping to find some sense of her in Apple TV+'s wayward adaption of the novel, which premiered Wednesday, may well be disappointed. And future fans of this series (and I reckon there will be some), unfamiliar with the author, may well be confused if they ever come