Review - Black Sails, Season 1, Episode 1

Recently I learned about a series called Black Sails, which is about the Golden Age of Piracy, and set in the year 1715, taking place in the Caribbean. Intrigued by the premise, I found that the first episode was freely available on Amazon (the rest of the episodes are not free). My Bonnie Bride and I were both game to give it a shot.

Black Sails - IMDB

First off, all though it takes place in 1715, and involves a number of historical figures, it is less than historically accurate. Anne Bonny, for instance, was a teenager in 1715, and had not yet married James Bonny and taken his name. Side note – Anne Bonny became a historical figure of note for me due to playing Pirate101 with my daughter, where we meet a pirate named Bonnie Anne whois named after Anne Bonny. Other historical inaccuracies probably abound. So, suspend your knowledge of history, and you’ll get past that. The series is also considered a prequel to Rober Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sails_(TV_series)) – certainly several characters are lifted out of the novel and placed in the series.

Ships at sea, nearing battle - IMDB

For the episode itself, it opens with an act of piracy on the high seas, all well and good, with the predictable pirate victory, which is expected as the show is about pirates. What I found a bit too predictable was tha after the initial assault and boarding of the merchant ship, the survivors barricaded themselves in a room with gun slits. I guess they didn’t think that tactic through as it was a surprise to no one when the pirates rolled a keg of gun powder against the chamber the crew was holed up in, and blew a big, gaping hole in it. The battle ended shortly there after. The story is then set into motion with the focus on Flint’s (Toby Stephens) pirate crew and a various other events. There are a few weird plot devices that make zero sense, and I won’t elaborate on them as they are integral to the overall story.

Toby Stephens (right) facing off against Anthony Bishop (left) - IMDB

Although the story itself is reasonably good and well constructed, good performances by cast, there is, for my taste (and that of my Bonnie Bride’s) way too much profanity and a lot of unnecessary nudity and sexuality. Okay, maybe if I were a teenager still, I’d dig those elements more. But I am long past that stage in life, and my Bonnie Bride has zero interest in seeing women’s boobies bouncing around. And we were both very glad our daughter, Little Miss, chose not to watch it with us (she had homework to do).

We did learn one interesting bit of history from the show: the pirates talked about how much money they pillaged from the cargo of the ship they looted in terms of Dollars. We were both – “say what?” - as it made it sound like they were talking in terms of U.S. Dollars, which didn’t exist in 1715. Off to wikipedia. And low and behold, they were referring to the Spanish Dollar, which was considered a global currency, and was more commonly referred to as “Pieces of Eight”, a term more common in usage films involving pirates – check it out at - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar.

Although the Black Sails is not something we plan on continuing with as it is not our cup of tea, it may be a show that others will enjoy a lot more than we did. As always, just because I didn’t care for a film doesn’t mean you will agree with me. Make your own call on it. At least the first episode is currently still free on Amazon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted using CineTV