A new Treasure Island is lost at sea

Treasure Island, the 1883 boy’s adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, is in the public domain. This means anyone can do pretty much whatever they want with it, without having to worry about paying for the rights. That’s important information to have going into MGM+’s new six-episode adaptation. It’s impossible to say for sure if “free” was a factor in the decision making process that led to this turgid, intermittently inspired slog, but it certainly didn’t hurt. No one was asking for this, no one needs it, and over the course of five hours and change, the show tries and fails to make a case for its own existence. At least producing it was slightly cheaper than it might have been if the producers had gone with a copyright-protected tale of nautical swashbuckling.

Give the show this much: It’s an adaptation that’s not afraid to deviate from its source material, whether or not those deviations are well-advised. While protagonist Jim Hawkins (Tom Sweet) is still a young man working with his mother to run an inn, he and mom make extra cash by exploiting Jim’s photographic memory, a talent that proves useful when it comes to extremely flammable treasure maps. In an even bigger change from the novel Bess Hawkins (Hayley Atwell) has her role substantially expanded, turning the character from a background figure in Jim’s journey to manhood to one that nearly takes over the role of protagonist from her son.

It’s an odd choice, one of several throughout the series that never quite reaches its potential. Atwell is determined and forceful, and there are hints in the early-going that her fixation on raising Jim’s status (and hopefully her own) make her willing to compromise herself in dramatically compelling ways. But this never gets beyond skin deep. At one point, the character speechifies about how her status as a woman has robbed her of the ability to choose her own way like a man. It’s a didactic monologue, one whose truth is so obvious and indisputable that it’s almost possible to ignore how little it has to do with anything around it.

That’s the fundamental flaw haunting all the attempts here to freshen up Stevenson’s original narrative: none of them accomplish much beyond novelty. Take Aaron Graham (Jack Huston), an character created for this version of the story. A merchant with secrets of his own, Graham serves as a potential role model for young Jim, set against the more malevolent and criminal Long John Silver (David Oyelowo). It’s an intriguing idea, but the show pauses mid-journey for an hour long adventure that has nothing whatsoever to do with the treasure that supposedly motivated all of this; and while this pause offers a chance to deepen Graham’s character, its disconnect from the main narrative makes it difficult to care much.