James at 24

I’m not usually a fan of the Halmis’ invariably handsome but frequently irritating productions — Halmi Sr. especially is a man who loves the classics but can’t resist fiddling with them, a kind of sentimental postmodernist fond of tacked-on framing devices and interpolated themes (his Alice in Wonderlandwas about . . . stage fright). But I have this time been quite completely charmed; possibly it is because I am ill-acquainted with the originals, and feel no need to defend them from abuse. Certainly the producers (with series creator Nick Willing and writers Chris Harrald, Clive Exton, Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet) are messing with literature again, and in ways that a Wells purist, or even half-purist, would on literary and factual grounds find objectionable. (It is occasionally objectionable even without reference to Wells.) But as a love story, detective story, sci-fi story, The Infinite Worldsis touching, rousing, suspenseful, and great, not entirely thoughtless fun. Ward and Carmichael make a particularly attractive couple; in their paranormal investigations and slow-burning mutual attraction, they’re Scully and Mulder in a late-Victorian X-Files, surrounded by the blustery supporting characters and Dickensian eccentrics that are the stock-in-trade of English popular fiction and TV shows. (I think of all the strange little people of The Avengers, and there is as well a bit of Steed and Emma about Wells and Jane.) And there are the cute accents, the formal attitudes, the high collars and top hats, the whole nine yards of the Masterpiece Theatreaesthetic (albeit Halmi is an American, born and raised in Hungary). I feel almost a fool, an impressionable Yankee rube, for falling for it all so easily. But I did. If nothing else, it’s refreshing to spend time within a television show whose characters use words like sanguine and pusillanimous not for snob effect, but simply because they’re the right words to use. It feels like a holiday.

JAMES DEAN | TNT Sunday, August 5, 8 p.m.

THE INFINITE WORLDS OF H.G. WELLS | Hallmark Channel | Sunday–Tuesday, August 5–7, 9 p.m.