Back in the ’70s and ’80s, the undisputed kings and queens of event television were the multi-night miniseries. These were appointment TV, usually with lavish production values, a star-studded cast, and raked in ratings and Emmy wins, like Roots and The Thorn Birds. Today, the miniseries has been replaced by the limited and/or event series, a way to get a group of amazingly talented people to make a super high-quality season of television. We can now add Tom Hardy and Ridley Scott‘s names to the list of high profile producers, and their project together is the bananas-looking FX limited series, Taboo.

Looking a bit like the non-superhero version of Arrow, Taboo stars Hardy as James Keziah Delaney, the son of a shipping magnate in 1814 who returns to London from Africa following years of people believing he was dead. Stuff, like, HAPPENED to him during his absence which makes him a completely different and heavily tattooed version of his former self. The heads of the East India Company (embodied by Jonathan Pryce, one of the best villain choices ever, given Game of Thrones) do not like Delaney coming back and reasserting his birthright, which will of course lead to bad stuff, intrigue, murder, and all the things that make television drama so fun.

Hardy is one of the most fun actors to watch, and he seems properly deadly and unhinged in the trailer for this, which means we’re here for this even without the awesome period costumes and moody, grungy lighting. The eight episodes will air on FX here in the U.S. and BBC One in the UK, and also stars Michael Kelly (Man of Steel and House of Cards) and Oona Chaplin (Game of Thrones‘ reddest wedding victim). It’s being created by Steven Knight, who wrote and directed Hardy in the film Locke, and also created the Netflix series Peaky Blinders.

Are you jazzed for this series? What in the world do you think is going on? Let us know in the comments below!

—

Image: FX/BBC

Kyle Anderson is the Weekend Editor and a film and TV critic for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter!