I watched the full season of the recent STARZ series "Black Sails," also about pirates, and wound up thinking more of it than I did the first episode of "Crossbones." The writing of the latter seemed scattered, as if the writers didn't really understand what their concept was. Malcovich was interesting in a Gary-Oldman-like over-the-top way, but his character didn't grab me the way that some of the characters in "Black Sails" did.
Plus, I was experiencing cognitive dissonance while watching it. The other male lead is played by an English actor by the name of Richard Coyle, and he's actually very good in his role. But part of me was cracking up laughing every time I saw him, because I first "got to know him" as an actor on a comedy series called "Coupling," in which he played Jeff, one of the most clueless guy-hanging-around-in-a-bar characters ever captured on film. Every time he'd be onscreen in "Crossbones," being all serious, I kept waiting for his mother to come in from the wings and say in a hideously disappointed voice, "Oh JEFFREY!" :-) The terror of the Melty Man - Coupling - BBC comedy The terror of the Melty Man - Coupling - BBC comedy View on www.youtube.com Preview by Yahoo ________________________________ From: "Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Sunday, June 1, 2014 6:12 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Not your usual pirate "Hannibal" finished it's second season a week ago so Friday night NBC launched "Crossbones", a series based on the pirate Blackbeard. It stars John Malkovich as Blackbeard. I'm usually not into this genre be decided to give it a try watching it on Hulu+. This may well be a series worth watching especially since the protagonist, Tom Lowe - a British doctor, has been employed by the British to find Blackbeard and assassinate him before he learns the secrets of a navigation device built to foil him and his pirate ships. But along the way our protagonist learns there might be something more to Blackbread and his roving crews than first thought.
