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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
17
Mixed:
14
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews
Oct 1, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Starz, though, knows the formula for these costume-heavy action dramas from experience with shows like “Spartacus” and “Camelot.” And that formula is executed with particular skill in Black Sails, thanks to some strong performances and an exploration of the consequences of greed that could have come out of modern-day Wall Street.
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Jan 16, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The appeal of Starz's pirate drama in the season 2 premiere remains just that: pirates. But on land, when the show switches from the quest for one booty to another altogether, things get a bit wobbly, with romantic entanglements that fail to match the intrigue on the high seas. [23 Jan 2015, p.71]
Jan 27, 2014
Season 1 Review:
While the series, which opens with a ship being boarded and taken, does have its moments of big, noisy action (see: Michael Bay, above), it spends a lot of time on land, as well, with the main characters taking care of business, making plans, laying traps and working on their surprisingly complicated personal relationships. There is also, tedious to relate, an abundance of female nudity.... Other than that, Black Sails' depiction of daily life among the pirates is plausibly authentic and workaday, and the Nassau through which they roam feels real and well-peopled.
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Feb 13, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The era is a rich vein to mine, and to their credit, the creators are light on pirate cliches--I do not believe one "aargh!" is uttered--but at the same time, there's a little too much emphasis on pirate economics and labor disputes than is necessary, and the sprawling cast and hierarchy a little hard to keep straight.
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Jan 24, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Black Sails opens promisingly enough with a sea battle, followed by threats of violent upheaval aboard the Walrus, captained by the arrogant, aloof Flint (Toby Stephens). Too soon, though, the action moves onto land. And while Starz staples like graphic sex and savagery are hardly uncommon occurrences in the bustling debauchery of New Providence Island, Sails becomes stubbornly becalmed by its landlocked third and fourth hours, as tiresome wheeling and dealing triggers a bout of Restless Sea Legs Syndrome in the impatient viewer.
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Jan 23, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Much of the time in the early episodes is spent on the preparations for this mission [for one last big score] and on laying out a complicated network of alliances and animosities, and it gets to be a slog. Helping to keep us interested are Mark Ryan, providing a comic touch as a grizzled quartermaster, and Luke Arnold as a not-so-charming rogue named John Silver, not yet Long.
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Jan 27, 2014
Season 1 Review:
In its zeal to avoid Johnny Depp-style silliness, any sense of pirate fun is lost at sea. [3 Feb 2014, p.44]
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