Black Sails Episode 1 Review

If you intend to watch it and don't want to know what happens in advance: don't read this

Just finished watching it on the Starz app on my xbox 360. An hour and 5 minutes long. I'm getting really tired of hearing British accents like only UK actors can do historical fantasy but that's a personal opinion and no way reflects the show itself. Just why only Brits, like there's no other accent in the world? I don't even find that accent attractive anymore, every time a British person speaks I want to punch them in the mouth and tell them to speak English. Don't get me wrong, I feel the same way about Americans and the fact that they can't speak English either. Moving on -------------------> So it opens up with a merchant ship being raided by the crew of pirates, and this really weird Jon Snow with an unnatural tan looking guy is hiding with the cook who ripped out a few very important pages out of the Captain's Log and was hiding it. You'll find out later that the papers contain the written schedule of another ship, a Spanish ship carrying a treasure worth of 5 million Spanish currency. The Jon Snow looking dude (I don't even know his name) takes those documents from the cook after killing him and looses it in a brothel when he's brought to the pirates' home island, New Providence Island, he looses it during the sex which just happens, they don't even know the guy, he didn't get there on his own so - random sex scene - then a whore finds it and uses it as blackmail against him.

Now the captain of the unnamed pirate ship, who's name I also don't know (he has a red beard-goatee&mustache combo- that I do find attractive so I'm just staring at his facial hair like o.o) Has no real control of his crew, another pirate on the ship has risen against him and they're days away from the votes being tallying to replace the current red bearded captain. The red beard captain has the quartermaster buy votes for him from people on New Providence Island which includes black people so I guess Starz can't be accused of being racist. Although the whole island and the quartermaster has a bit of The Pirates of the Caribbean flavor to me. When yet another pirate who has long light brown hair wants to rise up to be the only captain who's illegally obtained cargo is sold on New Providence, kills two of the black guys as a way to make sure the red bearded captain loses his vote and eventually gets booted from the island; one less competitor.  

The red bearded captain visits a wealthy plantation owner for information on the Spanish treasure to no avail and the end of the episode ends with a life or death fight between red beard and the pirate who wanted to replace him. Red bearded captain wins.

My issues with this: Golden Age of Piracy era in the West Indies. Pirates of the Caribbean without Disney, anyone? Yes there were a lot of real life pirates during this age in that general area, but enough is enough, how many fucking times can this one era be milked? I can't stand this era, it's every children's pirate story ever told. Pirates have existed for centuries all over the fucking world. Japanese pirates who raided Korea are called Wokou, why not do something about them? Gracie O' Malley was an Irish female pirate captain, why not make a series about her? Julius Caesar the Roman Dictator was kidnapped by Greek pirates. I'm sure Egypt, Phoenicia, Carthage, China and India (long before the East India Trading Company existed) had their own pirates. The Ottoman Empire had pirates. Russia infamously had Ermak the river pirate who helped conquer Siberia. If we want to believe anything the Greeks wrote about the Etruscan people, then the Etruscans were greatly feared pirates. These pirates would have drunk wine and not rum and would have had a tougher time due to no guns or cannons. A whole world of history of fucking pirates but what keeps being chosen? The fucking Golden Age of Piracy, which happened to be the real last age of piracy. Why?

2.) I always assumed that if a pirate captain lost his position of captain it was because of a successful mutiny or losing a fight to death challenge. I thought those were the only two ways a captain could lose his position, voting seems too nice for a bunch of thieves, murderers and rapists. Luckily the red beard captain realized that and chose to fight to the death instead.

3.) The vulgarity of the show seems so misplaced. Random sex scenes that does nothing to enhance the quality of the plot or even whet eye candy, it kinda just exists in its uselessness. Same with the cursing and foul language, now I've heard the saying "talk like a sailor" but a lot of random fuck yous with no real serious insult or injury to accompany it. Not even playful fuck you between friends. The vulgarity seems forced, so did the sex scenes in Spartacus season 1 episode 1 but eventually it found its place between the scheming. I hope the vulgarity find its rightful place within this series.