Droughtlander suggestions: Watch The Essex Serpent with Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston

If you’re in the mood for another British period drama while you wait for Outlander, you’ll want to turn to Apple TV+. It’s the home of The Essex Serpent.

Starring Tom Hiddleston and Claire Danes, this series is based on the novel of the same name by Sarah Perry. It follows a widow, who moves to Essex in an attempt to start a new life. While there, she finds out about The Essex Serpent, and she’s determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

This is certainly a story that’s filled with Victorian superstition, small-town mindsets, and mystery. Claire Danes’s Cora is much like Claire in Outlander, only from the same time period with a mind ahead of her time.

What is The Essex Serpent about?

The series follows Cora, a widow from London who moves to a small village Essex. She’s determined to get away from the life she had with her abusive husband, but she ends up in the middle of a conspiracy. She’s chosen to move to a village where superstition is everywhere, and there’s only so much the pastor of the village can do to help.

Cora is intrigued by a local superstition about a mysterious serpent. She’s sure that there is something human about it, but she needs to unravel the mystery. The problem is when she starts unraveling the mystery, the town isn’t ready to hear it and she becomes the one accused of bringing the serpent back to town.

At the same time, she finds herself with love interests around her. One of them is the local pastor, and the other is a woman from her past in a time when this sort of love would be forbidden.

Why watch The Essex Serpent during Droughtlander

This is a great show to check out during Droughtlander. To start with, it is a limited series. The whole series tells the story from the book.

It’s a story that brings us a woman who is ahead of her time. She has some similar views of the world as Claire does in Outlander, including that there has to be something human involved in a lot of superstitious moments. She will stand up against the people of the village to get to the bottom of it.

Then there’s a forbidden love story of sorts. The trailer hints at two: the pastor who is falling for Cora and a woman from Cora’s past who wants her to return to London. However, Cora’s past in London scares her. She came from a life with an abusive husband, and she refuses to go back to that. We get this story of a woman who is stuck between two worlds, similar to Claire stuck between two time periods.

The Essex Serpent is available to stream on Apple TV+.