Black Sails

What do you think of Black Sails? I enjoyed it, but I dropped it about halfway through the second season, for no particular reason.
I heard that S2 concludes the Spanish gold storyline and that S3 and S4 change the focus a bit. Is it worth picking this show up again? Were the final two seasons any good, given that they changed the original premise of the hunt of the Spanish gold?

Id say S1 to around the halfway point of S2 was the weakest part of the show.
Once the Walrus returns to Nassau in S2 it gets better, then starting from the S2 finale (one of my favourite episodes of any show ever) it becomes incredible in S3/4
Considering it started as a mediocre GoT knock off it did pretty well to become one of my favourite shows ever.

Also the gold is still important, just in a different way, it's hard to explain without spoilers.

It's good.

Cheers for avoiding spoilers mate.
And it's good to hear that you consider the parts of the show I actually watched to be the weakest parts, since I actually really enjoyed those. Sounds to me like it only gets better, so I'll jump back into it straight away.

Why was it cancelled then if it was so good? I loved seeing a pirate setting TV show, the genre is so rarely used nowadays. Only PotC and Black Sails come to mind when thinking about pirate themed media in the last decade.

>What do you think of Black Sails?

GAY,dropped

It wasn't cancelled. The story reached it's conclusion.

Was waiting for a brainlet to post this.

The last couple episodes of the fourth season are all i wanted from a Treasure Island prequel. One or two seasons more of that would have been great.

In other words, they quit at the right moment; when they finished telling the story, instead of milking it.
That's even better. Hats off to them, a lot of good shows get milked to death and turn to shit.

I only said that because a quick glance at the wiki page made it sound like S1/S2 was about the finding and retrieval of the gold, and S3/S4 focused on some kind of war. Which gave me the impression they sat down and devised a new storyline in order to continue the show, which could also mean they could do it again and again.

But by the sound of it, all seasons tie together neatly and the last two seasons don't feel forced on.

season 3 and 4 were absolute kino

Bullshit, the way the series started, the pacing and everything, set it up for at least 5-6 seasons and the way everything is happening at once with characters going from friend to foe in 2 episodes skipping a ton of character development shows that the producers gave the show one last season to wrap everything up.

S3 and S4 are better than 2 imo.

At first glance it looks like the plotline is changing but that war was always Flint's intention with the Spanish Gold. Even from the first episode his 'I WILL BE YOUR KING' line set it up.

writers literally said in interviews they told everything they wanted, cant add more

I'm sure that has nothing to do with STARZ publicly announcing that the third seasons viewer numbers were shit but that Black Sails was given a final season to wrap everything up.

s2 finals was already rhat.
even before that. Ned. And Flint stealing the big ass ship

Kino sails is absolute kino

>I loved seeing a pirate setting TV show, the genre is so rarely used nowadays.
Agree with you there. There's so much potential in a pirate themed series, and it doesn't just have to be about pirate crews hunting for treasure, there's also the "period piece" aspect of showing a historical period of the 17th and 18th century, where various countries were expanding their territory by colonizing tropical countries. Black Sails did a good job with that, showing a nice balance between classic pirate treasure hunting and the daily lives of people living in the colonies, the political and economical aspects shown in Nassau.

yep. i liked that in s1, which many here found boring.
captaincy voting, duel, ship repair, loot searching then making money of it via the guthries and likes

Other pirate material always go with the shitty fairy tale level, like Pirate of the carribeans or Hook. This is unique shit

Great show but Max should have died not Black Beard or Charles.

It gets way better, some of the best action scenes and naval battles filmed.

You realise both of those guys died in real life too right?

Exactly, there's more to piracy than sailing and plunder. I loved the slightly slow pacing and the focus on everyday life during the age of piracy. Like you mentioned, the ship repairs, the hierarchy on the ship, but also the stuff with Eleanor keeping Nassau up and running, the brothel stuff.

Pirate stuff tends to focus on swashbuckling and gold and eye-patches. But what they could do is something like a Downton Abbey but set in the pirate era. It's an interesting period of history even without showing off cool pirate fights.

The cool pirate fights and swashbuckling are what made it worth watching.

Elenor and Nassau shit was the worst parts. You can cut it down to a minimum and the show would increase in quality to 11/10

also

Different strokes, I guess. I enjoyed the slow-paced daily lives of the people in Nassau. Exciting pirate fights are great as well of course, but I would personally get bored pretty quickly if that's all the show did.
What made it so good for me was the mixture of both pirate life and fights, and seeing what happens at the colony.

too much stronk wymon faggots niggers

great show all around, each season was great for different reasons

would have been better than game of thrones if it hadnt been for max

Yeah that's basically what piracy was about, aside from looting ships.

Dude.

best Teach portrayal ever

brutal death too

anyone else started to grow beard because of Flint looking awesome?

I wish Bear McCreary would release a soundtrack of all the music he did thoughout the 4 seasons of the show.

Teach's end was painful to watch.

I would if I fucking could, but genetics fucked me over. If I stop shaving for four weeks I look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo

...

one of the most brutal deaths I've seen on TV and yet he still goes out like a badass

...they're both alive you dumb double nigger

I've had a beard for 20 years. I still look like an idiot.

One of my favourite shows. No milking it, the story was done perfectly with the right amount of time. S1 starts off slow but it builds up so much for the eventual pay-offs that I can forgive it.

I agree with the some other user that said it seemed like a GoT knock-off at the beginning but GoT never even came close to S3-4 of Black Sails.

Also, without giving spoilers: Spanish gold storyline only concludes with the series' end which is good imo because it feels like the whole series is one consistent story.

But although it is always the main plot device from the first episode to last, the way it's handled and what it means for characters change (both narratively and symbolically) which keeps everything fresh and dynamic.

S3>S1>S4>S2

Don't rub it in man, you have no idea how it feels to be unable to grow anything so much as a decent stubble. Facial hair is also incredibly popular with women these days and I've lost count of the amount of times women have told me I'd look great with a beard and how much it would suit me.
It's like having a micro penis, there's nothing you can do about it, and it fucks up your chances with romance.

Damn that's a nice beard Flint's got though.

The storm sequence in the third season was really impressive. I never thought that it would be possible to do that on tv.

I watched like 4 episodes because I wanted to watch Golden Age of Sail shpis so badly and while it did look good, it was just a bad TV show. Though judging by this thread it does get better so I'll probably end up going back to it.

S1 is still quality but it spends so much time with set-up that I can see why it's off-putting. But stick around and entertainment value really skyrockets by the end of S2.

Just wrapped up this show, it's pretty good. I didn't realize I wanted a pirate show without all the voodoo magic shit that the Disney movies are.

Can anyone recommend shows in similar settings?

>tfw there are anons in this thread RIGHT NOW who don't have a nautical/pirate themed rewatch season where they watch Black Sails in its entirety, the first two PotC movies, Master and Commander, and copious amounts of Hornblower, as well as Water World

S1 was a bit slow as I remember. I thought they'd get the gold by the third episode and then move on to another adventure, but it turned out very different and focused on characters more. All in all I liked it a lot though.

Seconding this. I've been dying to see more pirate themed things. PotC has become too magical, but Black Sails was a nice look into pirate life at that time in history. It really strikes me as odd that there's so little pirate stuff out there, maybe the sets and the ships are too high budget or something.

John Adams the HBO series is within the range of a similar settings but it's a very different show. No pirates obviously but more on the political drama. Actually the only thing similar is the decor and costumes but oh well...