Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: women in Victorian England had little-to-no agency over their lives. Whether it’s arranged marriages in order to climb the social hierarchy, the lack of job prospects outside the home, or the inability to claim their own sexuality, it was a dour time for the fairer sex. Which is why the recent surge in films and television to give a sort of revisionist history to the period has been both refreshing and a little repetitive. By the time you finish the first three episodes of AppleTV+’s newest series The Buccaneers, you’ve likely seen everything it’s depicting in one way or another, whether it be in shows like Bridgerton or films like Emma. and Emily. However, don’t let that stop you from checking The Buccaneers out, because it’s full of care and compassion that isn’t easy to come by.

One of the smartest decisions from series creator Katherine Jakeways, who’s adapting the unfinished novel by Edith Wharton, is to center the action almost exclusively on women. The show presents a culture clash in several respects, as four young American women travel to England in search of love and direction. They’re brought over initially for the marriage of Conchitta (Alisha Boe) to Richard (Josh Dylan), a wealthy Lord. Tagging along are sisters Nan and Jinny St. George, and Lizzy and Mabel Elmsworth (Kristine Frøseth, Imogen Waterhouse, Aubri Ibrag and Josie Totah, respectively). Jakeways, who wrote each of the three episodes premiering tomorrow, gives each female character their own unique perspective and their own interiority, but centers each of them as women who simply want to be happy on their own terms. Whereas some see fulfillment simply in marriage, some see it as less of a necessity. Some are single-minded in their affection, and some stumble into complicated love triangles. There is some collar-tugging from the English as they encounter these sassy Americans and their inability to confer to British norms, but these moments don’t overload the drama.

What makes it all worthwhile is in the genuine chemistry between the female leads. They might not always see eye to eye but there’s a lived-in familiarity to each of the performances that doesn’t come easily, so it goes a long way in making The Buccaneers watchable. Thankfully it’s not a totally girl boss-ified series, where the women rule and the men drool; these are flawed, often selfish characters and Jakeways isn’t afraid to show their less desirable sides. And though you’d expect the male characters to be the stuffy, British aristocratic type, wishing their brides to be “seen and not heard”, The Buccaneers gives them a realistic three-dimensionality more often than not.

AppleTV+, for all its productions that simply don’t exist, spared no expense in making The Buccaneers look and feel like an authentic period piece. Costumes and production design, though perhaps not historically accurate, were clearly designed to be visually appealing first and foremost. It comes across in the music cues too, often adopting a kind of punk rock soundtrack that wouldn’t be out of place in Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

The Buccaneers won’t break the mold, and it won’t capture the zeitgeist in the way that similar AppleTV+ shows like Severance or Ted Lasso have, but that doesn’t make it any less worthwhile. I find myself looking forward to watching more episodes, despite a lack of clarity on where the remainder of the season will go. It’s the kind of show that, while not perfect out of the gate, I can easily see improving drastically if given the proper runway.

Three episodes of The Buccaneers premieres on AppleTV+ on November 8, with new episodes premiering every Wednesday.