In a dark drizzle, a young man runs through the woods screaming for help. A jittery camera follows his progress as music mirrors his urgency. The screen is a blur of ominous images, leaving the audience on edge.
This could be the beginning of any procedural crime drama on TV. Only the wardrobe gives it away as a classic adventure story.
Treachery. A hapless orphan. A shipwreck, murder and more. “Kidnapped,” Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale set in Scotland in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, comes alive in a two-part retelling on PBS’s “Masterpiece Theatre” this week and next. The BBC production will air for 90 minutes the next two Sundays at 9 p.m. each week on KRMA-Channel 6.
The swashbuckling and ripsnorting, from sea to Highlands, is impeccably depicted.
The lad, Davie Balfour (James Anthony Pearson), and the period come into focus after the opening sequence. When Davie sets out to find his last living relative, Uncle Ebenezer (Adrian Dunbar), he has no idea the old man is a conniving snake.
Kidnapped and sold into slavery on a ship bound for the Carolinas, Davie finds himself among cowards, thieves and scoundrels. Not to mention he’s seasick.
When the rational and mild-mannered Davie meets romantic anti-
English Highlander Alan Breck (Iain Glen), the tale kicks into high gear. English majors know the subtext concerns the deep division at the heart of Scottish culture at the time, Whigs versus rebels, traditionalists loyal to King George versus rebel independents. But the adventure story stands by itself.
Ransoms, poisons, gallows. Powder kegs, redcoats, turncoats and bagpipes. Forget every overcivilized drawing-room “Masterpiece” you’ve seen, and climb aboard.
If it’s action you’re after – and if you fit the young demographic that’s become increasingly important for all networks, including even PBS – the TV “Kidnapped” will meet your needs.
If Stevenson’s language is what you cherish, the TV rendering will fall short.
“I came to myself in darkness, in great pain, bound hand and foot and deafened by many unfamiliar noises. There sounded in my ears a roaring of water as of a huge mill-dam; the thrashing of heavy sprays, the thundering of sails, and the shrill cries of seamen. The whole world now heaved giddily up, and now rushed giddily downward; and so sick and hurt was I in body, and my mind so much confounded, that it took me a long while, chasing my thoughts up and down and ever stunned again by a fresh stab of pain, to realize that I must be lying somewhere bound in the belly of that unlucky ship.” The director makes do with out-of-focus rocking and Davie claiming he is dying of seasickness.
In place of literary stylings, a certain amount of humor marks the modern film adaptation as the male-bonding saga veers into giddiness. This is easy-listening, easy-viewing “Masterpiece Theatre” with most of the literature squeezed out.
Still, it’s a rollicking good yarn. And it momentarily makes “Masterpiece Theatre” an action-adventure outlet, as accessible to young men seeking adventure tales as any Lifetime movie is for young women seeking emotional comfort.
While “Kidnapped” wraps up in two installments, an ongoing cliffhanger concerns the future of “Masterpiece Theatre.” The franchise, a favorite of PBS loyalists for three decades, is still looking for a corporate underwriter since Mobil walked away last year.
Mobil reportedly spent more than $250 million on “Masterpiece” and other PBS programs over 32 years. The company spent some $10 million a year to cover full funding for the drama series.
Recently, “Masterpiece” got an emergency grant of $4 million over two years from PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help in the search for a new funder. Executives vow the series will go on, at least for the near future.
Meanwhile, one option is allowing 30-second spots, for “underwriting credits,” very much like the commercial big boys. Can “Masterpiece” avoid a shipwreck of its own? Will the orphan series find a benefactor? Stay tuned.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
