GENTLEMAN'S GAME

"Great Expectations," on Hulu.

- INKOO KANG

Dickens gets debauched by sex, drugs, and gunfire in a new adaptation of “Great Expectations,” streaming on Hulu. The six-part FX/ BBC miniseries is a slice of Victoriana soaked in Red Bull which avows, too brashly at times, that it is no staid PBS affair. The British writer Steven Knight (the creator of “Peaky Blinders,” who also adapted “A Christmas Carol” for television, in 2019) casts gothic and colonial shadows over the beloved bildungsroman, which follows Pip, an orphan whose aspirations to become a gentleman are bankrolled by a mysterious benefactor. In Knight’s retelling, Pip learns that few fortunes are made without preying on the misfortune of others. Traditionalists will balk at the show’s many departures from the novel—and, likely, at its blue-lit, try-hard edginess—but this energetic remix doesn’t betray the spirit of the original. Dickens’s heavy social conscience, character-driven scenes, and preposterous plotting are all deftly distilled.