Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

The greater latitude and time enhances the travel aspects (after movie versions, featuring David Niven and Jackie Chan, in 19, respectively), while introducing more detailed backgrounds and relationships among the central trio fleshes out the characters. His not-really-a-valet French aide Passepartout (Ibrahim Koma), who, in need of a job, lies to secure the gig and an ambitious young journalist, Abigail Fortescue (Leonie Benesch), who are both generally more resourceful than the starched English gentleman they’re accompanying.

Where this “Eighty Days” stands out, however, is in Fogg’s companions. Naturally there’s a ticking clock (and a terrific score approximating that by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg) as Fogg undertakes his global trek in the 1870s, in an impulsive response to a challenge from Bellamy (Peter Sullivan), an oily member of Fogg’s snooty club secretly in desperate need of winning their high-stakes wager. David Tennant plays the unlikely adventurer Phileas Fogg, in a slick retelling that significantly updates and expands the story. What seems like a not-necessary idea actually turns into a pretty good one with “Around the World in Eighty Days,” adapting Jules Verne’s novel into an eight-episode Masterpiece series, one already renewed for another voyage.

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne