(Like “Pillars,” it was adapted by John Pielmeier, and for those who like a spoiler, the miniseries is synopsized in great detail on the Reelz website.) If you were happy with “Pillars,” which went its own crazy way at the end, you should be good with this. I’ve seen only the first two of its eight parts, which premiere Wednesday on Reelz Channel - it is an international co-production in which Reelz had no hand - but it seems that it will be broadly faithful to the book, with some rearrangement or reupholstering of the furniture and a wall knocked out here and there.

The medicine it is an alternative to is of the sort where, when a wounded knight (Ben Chaplin) arrives in town with an arrow through his arm, the doctor monk who begins to treat him (the always disturbing David Bradley) prescribes “a poultice of dung.” Tom Weston-Jones (the star of “Copper”) plays Merthin, descended from the “Pillars” character Thomas the Builder, and quite a little visionary architect himself: He has a star-crossed relationship with Caris (Charlotte Riley), a wool merchant’s daughter who is learning about alternative medicine from wise Mattie Wise (Indira Varma). Set in the 14th century in the fictional English market town of Kingsbridge - there is an actual Kingsbridge, but it is not this place - as well as in France and Italy, it follows the matter of the first book by more than a century, but hits some of the same themes in the same ways. Ken Follett’s historical novel “World Without End,” a less beloved sequel to his much beloved historical novel “The Pillars of the Earth,” has become a miniseries - a sequel itself to the 2010 miniseries “Pillars” became.

World without end novel