Photo: Starz
What Is This Thing?
In 1715, ships are vulnerable to attack by pirates basically all the time. And while some revile the practice and its sometimes murderous effects, others take advantage of opportunity to ditch the law and make their own fortune the easy way: with violence and theft!
When Is It On?
Saturdays at 9 PM ET on Starz.
Why Was It Made Now?
I don't really know? Maybe this is how long it takes for a movie trend to make the jump to TV? I mean, this isn't even the first pirate-focused TV show that will premiere this year; there's also NBC's Crossbones, in which John Malkovich will play Blackbeard. But like, the first Pirates Of The Caribbean movie is over ten years old now. And Jake And The Never Land Pirates has been on since 2011. So maybe it just takes a really long time to build sets and make credibly filthy-looking costumes. Anyway, after washing out with Party Down (sigh) and Boss (mourned by no one who lives outside this apartment), Starz still wants to get into the premium-cable originals game, and this is the network's most ambitious play yet.
What's Its Pedigree?
Black Sails is the first TV series produced by bombastic director/trade show choker Michael Bay. Its pilot was directed by Neil Marshall, who's not exactly a big name but has a couple of Game Of Throneses under his belt. And while no one in the cast will probably look terribly familiar, Toby Stephens — who plays lead pirate captain Flint — is Maggie Smith's son. The Dowager Count! JK, I don't know how succession works.
...And?
Befitting a show that sprung from the loins of Michael Bay, the action sequences — a pirate battle that opens the pilot, and a climactic sword fight — are perfectly shot, acted, and edited. Admittedly, I watched the advance version of the series premiere that Starz put up online, which was bowdlerized for YouTube ("I can't stop thinking about all the tits we're not seeing!" - me during a bar scene), but even a selectively blurred-out version of the aftermath of the violent sword fight was satisfyingly gory.
...But?
There's a part early on when one of the pirates gives this speech in favour of piracy that frames it as a fundamentally democratic enterprise, with men equally sharing what they take by force, as opposed to giving it back to whatever crooked company they might work for. Which is partly true, and partly a whitewash of what we've just seen: a bunch of criminals illegally boarding a ship, killing some crew members and conscripting the rest. Yes, pirates are taking what they feel like and sharing the spoils, but just because they're sharing doesn't make piracy socialist theory in action. Once you see the family resemblance between Stephens and Smith, it's impossible not to see a ghostly overlay of the Dowager Countess's face over his and wish he'd start clucking about someone's excessive familiarity with the servants. There's also a couple of sex scenes that both feel pretty gratuitous. After you've had a chance to watch it, come back here and say which one you think is the more gratuitous; I personally can't make up my mind.
...So?
I can't deny that all the business that comes between the action scenes is obviously way more boring than seeing people get killed with cannonballs and swords and stuff. (Memo to any pirate-themed entertainment that may come in the future: no one cares about sugar exports or corrupt colonial governors.) But between the actually fun violence and the tantalizing thread left loose at the end of this first episode, they've hooked me for at least a few more.