whidbeydanielg This is a 4 1/2 hour film about a voyage from England to Australia. On board is a young English gentleman who writes about his voyage.At first his writings are distant and objective. But as the voyage progresses, and he learns about the sea and about a world he could not imagine (and other people who he had never been around), his writings become more personal.Nobody is a hero. Everybody just "is." The acting is superb, especially by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jared Harris, the Captain. There is no fake drama on-board. The Captain is not a Captain Bligh.Instead, it is a creaky old man-o-war trying to get to Australia on its last legs. Months at sea in a cramped space around the same old people.Because there are no glorious battles the voyage is, in some ways, as slow for the viewer as it is for the sailors and passengers. But never boring.The series has a heart. It is lovely, exciting, and interesting. Cumberbatch, in an early role, displays the talent that we have come to expect from him in recent years. He carries the show.It is a must watch. One of the best things we have watched in years.

enavarro1 At last, something different, something different, something different! After flailing around (day after day) in the never-ending soup of present day cinematic, repetitive, mundane bilge ... stumbling across this wonderful series is like finding the proverbial oasis in the desert. I wish to thank the gods of Netflix for making it available and allowing me (admittedly late) to find and watch it. As a new-found fan of Mr. Cumberbatch (via Sherlock), I had just started to search out his other works when I found this wonderful epic.I found it to be an excellent period piece that kept me enthralled and interested from beginning to end. And the end ... so refreshingly lifting in spirit and emotion. The language was impeccable and precise. The acting fantastic and the drama left little wanting.I pray that the BBC Production Company never stops seeking out and filming these types of films.

N_animator First off, I randomly found this show on Netflix and decided to watch it when I saw the casting had Benedict Cumberbatch and Sam Neil. I had never heard of this, so I went into this completely blind and unbiased.Second, I've never read the books that this mini-series is based on, so I can't tell if it's faithful to the source material.Benedict Cumberbatch does a very good job playing as the snobby aristocrat, Edmund Talbot, who only thinks about himself and his own ambitions, and he does a very good job of portraying a man who is having difficulties keeping his aristocratic posture on board a ship that is full of lies, deceit and danger. There are some performances I find off- putting, like when Edmund meets Marion and for no real good reason goes absolutely insanely in love with her, to the extent that he tries to abandon ship to follow her. Maybe it's better explained in the books, but I just found it cringing.Sam Neil is among the actors who are prominently placed next to Benedict on the casting list, but it seems it was more to just draw people in with celebrity power since he is only really prominent in the last half of the third episode. Charles Dance does a brief appearance in the second episode as Sir Henry Somerset, but he too is given very little to do. Overall is just feel like wasted actors who could have been casted in more impacting roles.The story and drama itself is well done. I felt myself glued to the screen to follow what was going to happen. Who was holding big secrets and who was stabbing who in the back. Added to that is the claustrophobia of being on a single ship in the middle of the vast ocean with nowhere to go, forcing characters to confront each other. The story is well told and the actors does a very good of showing the desperation and drama that would happen in the close quarters of this ship.Lastly, the effects are pretty weak, but I don't blame them entirely since the cameras are mostly aimed at the actors, budget was probably very low, and there aren't that many scenes that requires VFX.I would recommend this movie to those who generally just like historical dramas, or maybe just like to watch Benedict Cumberbatch's earlier roles.

ewillia777 Am I the only one to notice that the "realism" of the 19th century ship is erroneous. Actually it's a 15th century, right around 1620 if memory serves me, because the "realistic" ship in the movie is the Mayflower, now as far as I know the Mayflower NEVER went to Australia or even attempted a voyage to Australia. I don't know who handled R&D for this film, but using the Mayflower and hoping that no one will notice is a poor job indeed.They even printed it on the cover art and the DVD. I wonder how may other people noticed this little blunder? Not to mention that the movie itself was just plain awful, I would have expected better from Sam Neill.