In mid- 19th century Europe, five heirs struggle against a global conspiracy scheming to steal their inheritance to fund plans for world domination.
In the first episode, a grizzled veteran of the Napoleonic Wars escorts one of the heirs, an 11 year old orphan girl, from Siberia to Paris., but they are intercepted by a diabolical wild-beast tamer in Germany who threatens their journey.
Ensemble CastEpicHistoricalPeriod
Time Period: 18th- 19th CenturyStory Location: EuropeSpecial Effects: Minimal SFXTarget Audience: Adult“BLACK ROBES” is based on Le Juif Errant by Eugene Sue, a best selling novel published in 1844 that became a worldwide sensation. Now mostly forgotten because it lacked “literary importance,”, the novel is a rollicking saga proven to have thrilled generations of readers. Originally published as a newspaper serial, the novel unfolds much like episodic television, with colorful characters, suspense, romance, intrigue, and cliffhangers that successfully enticed audiences around the world to come back for each new installment.
In subsequent episodes of the miniseries the other four heirs (a progressive industrialist, a naive priest, a beautiful, independent Parisienne, and an exiled, handsome Indian prince) confront the machinations of the conspiracy. The head of the conspiracy is a suave, former general now priest, assisted by his seemingly humble, but actually Machiavellian, secretary. The story unfolds in a 19th century world teeming with revolutionary unrest across a canvas that includes a cult of Stranglers in a jungle temple's ruins in Indonesia, to a Paris madhouse, a labor riot, and ultimately climaxes with the Paris cholera epidemic that killed 20,000 people.
“BLACK ROBES” is an epic miniseries which explores themes still relevant today: faith versus fanaticism, loyalty as vice and virtue, women’s rights, poverty, injustice, and questions regarding the true motives of those who cloak themselves in the “Black Robes” of authority and propriety. With its intertwining storylines mixing adventure, melodrama, history and social commentary, the result is a rich tale similar to the works of Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Leo Tolstoy.
