New Middle Ages miniseries closer to history than fantasy

The Middle Ages, that yawning centuries-wide gap between HBO's

Rome

and Showtime's

The Borgias

, has become all the rage on TV, what with all the sword, sorcery, and dragon action on

Game of Thrones

,

Once Upon a Time

, and

Merlin

.

But for Ken Follett, the era is less about sword and sorcery than mortar and thistle.

Known for his spy thrillers, Follett took on the Dark Ages with his 1989 Pillars of the Earth (19.6 million copies sold worldwide), a 938-page epic set in the 12th century that chronicled the construction of an English Gothic cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge.

The novel, which made for an exciting 2010 miniseries starring Eddie Redmayne, Rufus Sewell, and Hayley Atwell, was followed up in 2007 by a new Follett opus, the 1,024-page World Without End, which picks up the story of the cathedral 200 years later.

World Without End, which has sold an estimated 8.4 million copies worldwide, also has spawned a miniseries produced by the same team and featuring a stellar cast including Cynthia Nixon, Ben Chaplin, Peter Firth, Charlotte Riley, Tom Weston-Jones, and Nora von Waldstaetten.

It premieres at 8 p.m. Wednesday on Reelz, a cable channel that Comcast Cable recently added to its roster. (It's also available on DirecTV and Dish Network.) The eight-hour epic will air in four two-hour parts on Wednesdays through Nov. 7.

Follett said he became fascinated with the Middle Ages because of its position between ancient and modern.

"It's only 1,000 years ago, so people's fundamental nature is recognizable," Follett said by phone from his hotel in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was attending a book event. "Yet their lives are so radically different from ours: more brutal, harder."

Like its predecessor, World Without End follows the stories of a remarkably wide swath of English society, from the king down to an indigent homeless family of thieves.

The story opens in the momentous year of 1327. King Edward II has been deposed by his wife, Queen Isabella (Aure Atika), who replaces him with his 15-year-old son, Edward III (Blake Ritson).

Kingsbridge, once a provincial backwater, is a thriving town and its cathedral a powerful draw, bringing in pilgrims, craftsmen and merchants. But it's about to be hit by two calamities, said executive producer Rola Bauer.

"Things become darker when the queen levies new taxes and the plague decimates the town," said Bauer.

Follett said the plague led to the development of modern medicine and experimental science.

"Medicine was born not from the ruling classes, the priesthood, or even the professional classes," said Follett. "It was achieved by informal practitioners."

These include Caris (Riley), a bright young woman who learns her art first from a pagan healer, Mattie Wise (Indira Varma), and later from an iconoclastic teacher, Mother Cecilia (Miranda Richardson).

Caris' yin is matched by her treacherous aunt Petranilla's yang. "We decided to make this very much a woman's story," said Bauer, "and we wanted Petranilla to really be Caris' foil."

Played with delicious duplicity by Cynthia Nixon, Petranilla murders her sister-in-law in the opening minutes of the first episode. The reason? So she can move in and save money on rent.

Nixon said her character justifies her actions as a necessary evil by which she can help her ambitious son, Godwyn (Rupert Evans), make his way to Oxford University.

"She is the ultimate stage mother," said Nixon. "She is very cynical about the world and she is very astute about power, about how to attain power. She thinks of life as a blood sport."

Follett said Caris is the quintessential "Ken Follett character. . . . She's the determined and resourceful person," he said, "and she is a sexy, sensual woman. I was so pleased Charlotte Riley got the part. She looks so forceful."