HBO is responsible for a great many classic TV shows, from The Sopranos to Sex and the City to Game of Thrones to Succession and beyond. The network has a well-deserved reputation for quality, but not everything can be a hit.
Gentleman Jack is a period drama that HBO co-produced with BBC One. It’s dramatic, witty, beautifully photographed, and based on intriguing real-life events. For whatever reason, it never really caught on, and HBO canceled the show after its second season in 2022.
And that’s too bad, because the show is entertaining, eye-opening, and unique. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Gentleman Jack is one of the most underrated shows in HBO’s history.
Gentleman Jack, decoded
History meets romance meets HBO
Gentleman Jack is about a woman named Anne Lister (Suranne Jones), a land-owning businesswoman who really was alive in England in the early 19th century. The show is based in part on Lister’s voluminous diaries, which she wrote in code to prevent discovery. She was known for dressing in all black, which was the style affected by gentlemen of the time, and for doing things it was not considered appropriate for women to do, like opening and operating a coal mine. This behavior earned her the nickname “Gentleman Jack.”
Lister was also a lesbian. She wrote about her romantic life extensively in her diaries, which explains why they were in code; while lesbianism was not criminalized as male homosexual acts were in England at the time, lesbian relationships were considered socially unacceptable or even impossible; part of the reason lesbian activity was never criminalized was because lawmakers figured that if they didn’t draw attention to it, it might just not happen.
And that’s the time period that Gentleman Jack explores. Much of the drama revolves around Lister’s attempts to woo an heiress named Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle), who is attracted to Lister but who doesn’t have the vocabulary to express her feelings, and who struggles mightily when she sees those feelings as being in conflict with her religious faith. Her journey to self-acceptance at a time when self-acceptance for gay people in England was much harder than it is now is one of the pillars of the first season.
Anne Lister as an HBO antihero
Tony Soprano could never
In some ways, Gentleman Jack has more in common with a drama like Bridgerton or North & South than it does with your standard HBO show: it is, after all, a period drama about people with English accents dressed in fancy clothes caught up in a will-they-or-won’t-they romance.
But Gentleman Jack has more teeth than, say, The Gilded Age, another HBO period drama, because Anne and Ann are both in real, constant danger of being found out and punished, and there’s no guarantee of a happy ending. Also, Anne Lister herself can be difficult in the style of other HBO antiheroes. Her boldness is admirable and even inspiring, but the show doesn’t pull back from depicting Anne as an aristocrat, and one who doesn’t think much of the unwashed masses wanting a piece of the pie the British aristocracy has long hoarded for itself. She can be entitled and superior, and even though she and Ann eventually commit to each other, her eye isn’t above wandering.
In short, Anne Lister is the kind of flawed, complicated HBO protagonist you might recognize who might be at home on a show like The Sopranos or The Wire, just in period garb. And that’s just one of many influences on the series. In a move that recalls the British dramedy Fleabag, Anne will sometimes address the audience directly, adding a meta layer to a show that already runs several layers deep.
The cancellation of Gentleman Jack
They can’t be all be hits
Gentleman Jack also has a fine supporting cast, including Game of Thrones veteran Gemma Whelan as her stuffy sister Marian. The second season isn’t as solid as the first, as the show tries to find new ways to test Anne and Ann’s relationship, but it’s still rock solid
But not enough people thoughts so. Gentleman Jack Season 2 was among the least-watched shows on HBO at the time, and it was canceled not long after. The show doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, so it won’t leave you hanging, but it would still would have been fun to see what Anne Lister got up to in a third season. After all, the producers had a great many more diaries to get through.
HBO’s Harry Potter show will be a huge hit, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it
Who would’ve thought there’d ever be this much controversy over Harry Potter?
Historical friction
If you enjoy historical fiction like Gentleman Jack, there are plenty of other options out there for you. We already mentioned shows like North & South and The Gilded Age, although sometimes shows like that can feel more like romantic fantasies dressed up in period clothes. That’s not a knock against them — those shows are both a lot of fun — but Gentleman Jack is unique in that it’s a period romance that takes the history pretty seriously, resisting the urge to glamorize the past.
Other great historical fiction shows include the pirate drama Black Sails or the Netflix original show The Last Kingdom, which is set in ninth century England as opposed to nineteenth. It’ll always be a shame that Gentleman Jack didn’t get a third season, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty else out there worth watching.
