A Tale of Two Cities premieres Sunday, Sept. 6, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on MGM+. Kit Harington, François Civil, and Mirren Mack lead the four-part miniseries adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic work of fiction.
This limited series differentiates itself from other adaptations by beginning as a missing-person mystery and courtroom drama in 1782 London. We’ll expect it to eventually cross the Channel into revolutionary France, where character-driven narratives will no doubt spin in confluence with the historical events. There should be no shortage of romance, political violence, and one magnificent wastrel for a protagonist.
New episodes will air every Sunday at the same time. The complete story concludes Sept. 27, giving MGM+ four hours to move from an English treason trial toward Dickens’ famous final sacrifice.
A Tale of Two Cities miniseries preview
“Recalled to Life” is the title of the first episode, and the whole series kicks off when Lucie Manette (Mack) receives impossible news from her messenger. Eighteen years after witnessing her father’s apparent death, she learns tell that he may still be alive in Paris. Her messenger and lover, French émigré Charles Darnay (Civil), is then arrested and charged with treason for sharing this information.
Lucie then turns to Sydney Carton (Harington)—our hero indeed—a brilliant lawyer whose drinking and self-disgust are pickling his ability to practice. Down-on-his-luck, world-weary Carton then takes on the case to save Darnay, and so establishes the love triangle in which both men look a heck of a lot like each other.
So it’s not your traditional love triangle—and who’d expect it to be in civil-unrest-era France? The tangles and knots get funky indeed.
The first episode takes place seven years before the revolution.
A Tale of Two Cities FAQ
How many episodes are there in A Tale of Two Cities?
The limited series contains four episodes. New episodes will arrive every Sunday through the Sept. 27 finale.
Will there be another season of A Tale of Two Cities?
A second season is not expected. MGM+ has billed A Tale of Two Cities as a four-part limited series covering Dickens’ complete story.
Who stars in A Tale of Two Cities?
Harington plays Carton opposite Civil’s Darnay and Mack’s Lucie. Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Fehinti Balogun, Guillaume Gallienne, Yannick Renier, and Roxane Duran support them in a British-French ensemble built for the story’s bilingual journey between London and Paris.
