This eight-part series takes the young pickpocket Jack Dawkins, aka “Artful Dodger,” and his unscrupulous mentor Fagin from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and puts them in Australia, “the colony,” in the mid-1850s. However, at this point “Dodger” (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) has given up thievery (almost) for surgery, having been trained by a ship’s surgeon during wartime, and Fagin (David Thewlis) appears out of nowhere as an escaped prisoner from Britain. The relationship between Jack and Fagin takes several unexpected turns over the series and Thewlis’s interpretation of Fagin is a good enough reason alone for watching the entire series. In addition, Captain Gaines, a cruel and unrelenting pursuer of criminals, is expertly portrayed by Damon Herriman. This is the second reason why this series is a winner. Plus, there is a young woman who wants to train as a surgeon who spices the story up, along with a few minor characters who in true Dickens fashion bring their own mini-stories into the bigger story. Overall, an enjoyable way to spend a few evenings and it may, as it did us, inspire you to watch the Masterpiece Theater version of “Oliver Twist,” which was filmed in 2007. It’s hard to beat Dickens as a storyteller, but this off-shoot from the original Oliver Twist would surely make Dickens proud.