Looking For A Regal Soap? `Buccaneers' Is Your Thing

"Masterpiece Theatre: The Buccaneers," 9 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, KCTS-TV.

PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre" begins its 25th season at 9 o'clock tonight with the kind of well-acted, British-produced, old-fashioned romantic storytelling miniseries that has become the symbol of this program.

But "The Buccaneers," the initial offering of the season, is a miniseries with a difference: Much of it may be set in England but its point of view is American. It's a co-production between the BBC and PBS' WGBH-TV, and it's also being presented differently - a 90-minute episode is airing at 9 Sunday night, but instead of the remaining four hours being presented in hour-long episodes over the next four Sunday nights, there'll be two two-hour segments Monday and Tuesday nights.

The American point of view is provided by novelist Edith Wharton. "The Buccaneers," published in the U.S. in 1938, was her last novel. (She died in 1937.) Indeed it wasn't finished at her death, although she left notes as to how she intended to complete it. The final portions of the recently published edition draw upon Maggie Wadey's script for the TV series.

Although written in the 1930s, Wharton was describing a period when she was a young girl - the 1870s, a time of expansion and prosperity in the U.S., a time, before taxes, of the accumulation of great fortunes and a time when the American rich desperately hoped to become the equal of the English nobility.

It is against this background that Wharton tells of four rich young American girls whose mothers send them to England with the hope of capturing titled husbands who, in turn, hope their new American wives' fortunes will help them hang on to their great estates.

The four young women are Nan and Virginia St. George, whose father is considered the third wealthiest man in America; Conchita Closson, whose Brazilian mother, a widow, has remarried a wealthy American, and Lizzy Elsmworth, who has the least money and fewest social graces at the opening of the story (and the series) but winds up the wealthiest and happiest of all, but with a commoner.

The other three girls do indeed marry titles. Conchita, first to marry, captures Lord Richard Marable. A rake and the second son of Lord and Lady Brightlingsea, he's something less than a good catch although Conchita sees him as a way to independence. Virginia St. George marries his brother, Lord Seadown, not knowing he'd rather spend time with his mistress, Idina Hatton. Lizzy settles for an ambitious commoner, Hector, whose career, both financial and political, is on the rise. But the unhappiest marriage of all, and the central story in "The Buccaneers," is that of Nan St. George to Julius, Duke of Tintangel.

Threading their ways through these four girls' stories, whose paths often crisscross and intermingle, are several other characters, the most important being Laura Testvalley, Italian-born Englishwoman who becomes, in the first episode, Nan and Virginia's governess and eventually Nan's confidante and friend.

Testvalley has her own confidante, March, an American who came to London 30 years previously, was jilted by a titled Englishman, and has been living by her wits since that time. She is considered the key to what's really going on in London society. Three other main characters figure prominently: Julius' mother, Dowager Duchess of Tintangel; Sir Hemlsley Thwaite, a debonaire and rather dissolute widower, and his dashing son, Guy, who prefers a career as an engineer to being a layabout aristocrat.

As it becomes apparent by the end of Episode 1, Wharton adeptly created a gallery of colorful characters, all entertaining illusions that any follower of fiction knows is bound to lead to trouble.

Much of the trouble comes from the clash of American and British ideas about everything from manners and love to the role of women.

Some of the most interesting moments of "The Buccaneers" come from observing these two cultures in conflict. Lord and Lady Brightlingsea and the Dowager Duchess cannot comprehend why their new American daughters-in-law don't understand such concepts as noblesse oblige and the duties of being an aristocrat.

The young British men, with the exception of Guy, are portrayed as twits, too fond of alcohol and loose women, with little or no respect or interest in their wives, beyond their money, of course. In many ways, Wharton's novel is a cautionary tale of what can happen when fortune hunters and title hunters meet - and discover reality bears little resemblance to their hopes and dreams.

It's good "The Buccaneers" has the expected BBC production values and first-rate acting because, in the final analysis, "The Buccaneers" is essentially upper-class soap opera even Danielle Steel would admire.

Among the standouts are Cherie Lunghi as Miss Testvalley, Connie Booth as her friend, Miss March; Jenny Agutter as Idina, Lord Seadown's mistress, and Sheila Hancock as the Dowager Duchess - and Nan's mother-in-law. James Frain gives an interesting performance as Duke Julius, more interested in how clocks work than in what makes a woman tick. Michael Kitchen is dashing as Sir Hemlsley and Greg Wise is the epitome of the romantic hero as Guy.

Which brings us to the four young "Buccaneers" of the title - Alison Elliott plays Virginia St. George, Carla Gugino is Nan St. George, Mira Sorvino is Conchita and Rya Kihlstedt is Lizzy. Too often they all seem to be variations on the same girl and, when stuffed into fabulous period costumes, it's sometimes difficult to remember which girl is which, although eventually, since the story chooses to follow her tale in more detail, Gugino's Nan takes on more definition. But, in truth, their four performances are the least interesting in the entire production, directed by Philip Saville with an eye toward making the most of the colorful settings for this saga.

This `Trail' rambles "Trail of Tears," "NBC Monday Night Movie," 9 p.m. Monday, KING-TV.

This is an odd, misbegotten movie - that also manages to be watchable, thanks to some good performances, although all involved are eventually sold short by an overly-ambitious script by Matthew Bombeck, supposedly inspired by a true story.

It concerns two women whose children are kidnapped by their ex-husbands. So first we get two scary portraits of failed marriages that make you want to know more about these couples, as portrayed by Katey Sagal and William Russ and Pam Dawber and Jeffrey Nordling.

But then the movie shifts gears to the two women's unlikely forming of a duo to search for the children - and at that point tries to turn into a buddy-road comedy like "Thelma and Louise." This part works just as well as the earlier part, although it doesn't relate to it.

Finally, both directions are abandoned and the focus is on finding the children and becoming an out-and-out tear-jerker, complete with happy ending (although the husbands, whose characters in the first part were just as complex and interesting as the wives, are simply dropped and we never learn what happened to them.)

Sagal is excellent as a cynical blackjack dealer in Reno, while Dawber makes all of her sometimes cloying chirpiness work to her advantage here. Russ and Nordling are good within the limitations of the sketchy script. The result is unsatisfactory drama - but satisfactory acting.

You'll flip over this "Flipper," premiere of syndicated series, 7 p.m. Sunday, KIRO-TV.

Thirty years ago "Flipper" was a big hit for four seasons on NBC - and went on to play in syndication seemingly forever. Now it's back in this new production.

Little "Bud" has now grown up to be Dr. Keith Ricks, played by Brian Wimmer, and his research into the world of dolphins also involves Dr. Pam Blondel, played by Colleen Flynn, and, of course, two teenagers, played by Paytan Haas and Jessica Alba. Best of all, Flipper is still doing his tricks - and good deeds. If you liked the old "Flipper," you're sure to flip for the new one.