I found this mini-series unwatchable. All the people are various degrees of appalling, so there is no one to care about. The shipboard scenes are gritty, so if you think dirt equals authenticity, you'll love it, but I was completely unconvinced. The ship is absurdly roomy and often deserted, and the crew completely without discipline and often drunk, which ship's companies simply were not allowed to be. Cumberbatch is his usual icy, callous self, which works for others but not for me. Scenes of ship handling, sail handling, or the logistics of ship governance are almost nonexistent. The focus is entirely on the middle-class boors, hypocrites, and prigs who make up the paying passengers. The precise opposite of the splendid Master and Commander, this series seems to set out to document exactly how repulsive and boring ship voyages in the Napoleon era could be.
Review of To the Ends of the Earth
