This story begins when Dr.Martin Eaton returns from the Civil War in 1865 to his home in Hambledon, Pennsylvania.
His fiancée, Marjorie Farmington has unexpectedly married another - Adrian Ferrier. In 1866, Eaton marries Flora Bumpstead; they have no children, but Marjorie has two son, Jonathan and Harold.
Martin Eaton's new sister-in-law, Hilda resembles Marjorie, and Martin, smitten,becomes romantically involved with Hilda, who bears their daughter, Mavis, in 1877.
Adrian Ferrier dies of complications from appendicitis, and at the reading of his father's will, Jonathan Ferrier finds that Adrian was a very rich, corrupt man. Jonathan decides to become a doctor.
The riverboat containing Martin Eaton's gambler brother Jerome and Jerome's wife, Hilda, explodes. All perish, though their daughter Mavis survives; Martin and his wife adopt her.
Dr. Jonathan Ferrier establishes his practice in Hambledon, and becomes a crusading doctor.
A rich German immigrant, Peter Heger, installs his wife and daughter Jenny on an island mansion. Heger, a patient of Ferrier's, is told that he is suffering from uremia, and commits suicide.
Ferrier brings charges against Dr. Jim Spaulding who causes a patient's death through unsanitary practices. With his attorney friend, Howard Best, they pursue a lawsuit against Spaulding, who loses his medical license.
After service in the Spanish-American War, Jonathan Ferrier marries Mavis Eaton. Regretfully, she proves petulant, greedy, and not maternal.
Harold Ferrier and the widow Heger marry because she wants to have a good time with a bon vivant. However, she has a serious heart condition.
At the 1900 New Year's celebration, Harold Ferrier and his sister-in-law Mavis leave the party for an illicit tryst.
Harold's wife dies, and a condition of the will forces him to live on the island 7 months of the year.
Mavis informs Harold she is pregnant by him, and wants an abortion. After her illegal operation, Mavis begins to hemorrhage and flees to her father, bearing one of Jonathan's scalpels.
In Philadelphia Jonathan meets a former patient, Mrs. Zachary Robeson, and they indulge in a tryst. At their hotel, Jonathan receives a telegram that Mavis died of her bungled abortion.
Back in Hambledon, Jonathan is arrested for Mavis's murder, and his friend Howard Best wants to impugn Mavis's reputation in court, and wants Jonathan to testify.
The trial is held in Philadelphia, and Howard Best puts on an impassioned defense. Martin Eaton blames Jonathan for Mavis's death, but Mrs. Robeson is Jonathan's airtight alibi and he is acquitted, Eaton collapses, partially paralyzed from a stroke, and refuses to see Ferrier.
Ferrier's friendship with Best becomes strained when he tells Best that his daughter is dying of leukemia. Best goes berserk with grief, and must be restrained after threatening to kill Ferrier.
Later, the parish priest Father McNulty goes to Ferrier and entreats forgiveness for the Bests after their daughter dies.
Jonas Witherby, the owner of a gunpowder factory marries the town prostitute Priscilla for her money.
At the 4th of July celebration, Senator Kenton Campion presents a dynamic speech, bellowing about "Manifest Destiny",justifying our invading foreign countries "for their own good." He also prates about a "covenant with God."
After seeing his father in Washington, D.C. with a prostitute and realizing his amorality, Francis Campion (the Senator's son)botches a suicide by hanging, and father McNulty brings Dr. Ferrier to minister to the boy. Ferrier tongue lashes the father, who resolves (with Jonas Witherby) to destroy Ferrier.
They induce a Mrs. Edna Bemish from Scranton to go to Ferrier's office and cause a disturbance, claiming that he aborted her.
Also, young women without bills come into his office and pay large amounts of cash, to confirm Ferrier's supposed abortionist status.
The town madam, who is worried about Priscilla, asks Ferrier to go to her home. He finds that Jonas has addicted her to opium after embezzling her money, Jonathan takes her home and his mother ministers to her.
Witherby and Campion each give Dr. Louis Hedler (head of St. Hilda's Hospital)$10,000 if he will, in return, call a board meeting to revoke Ferrier's medical license. Witherby also visits Martin Eaton, who refuses to capitulate, despite threats of exposure concerning Mavis's true paternity.
Howard Best, Father McNulty, and Dr.Hedler confer over Ferrier's defense. Best goes to Scranton and talks to the police chief who tells him that Edna Bemish (Campion's girlfriend) could not have had an abortion, being sterile from a youthful abortion performed in Scranton.
Hedler sees that Martin Eaton wants to believe Jonathan guilty, but confesses his own secret to Hedler, and before dying, gives Hedler a written deposition stating that a Dr. Brickerman aborted Mavis, using Jonathan's scalpel to implicate him.
Ferrier goes on drunken rampages of his home and his office. Best, the priest, and Hedler find him, slap him into sensibility, and give him the copy of Martin's exonerative testimony. The medical hearing against Ferrier is canceled, and Dr. Brickerman is fired.
Jonas Witherby's unsafe munitions plant is on strike. A storm occurs, and Witherby is in the plant when it blows up. Priscilla Witherby is left a rich widow.
Jonathan finds out about Harold and Mavis's treachery, and rows to the island during the storm. A fight ensues between brothers on the mansion staircase, and Jenny Heger intervenes.
At the end, the opportunist Harold goes to see the widow Witherby about marriage.
Jonathan's mother tells him to go to Jenny Heger and court her, seeing, in retrospective, herself dancing with the man she should have married - Martin Eaton...
All performances were excellent, but the three outstanding ones were those of David Birney (Jonathan Ferrier), an actor of electrifying intensity; J.D. Cannon (Kenton Campion), whose portrayal of the demonic Senator was spellbinding; and Barry Brown (Howard Best), who invested the part with the deep emotionality of his soul.
A must-see mini-series.
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