ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

danigb-30801 A great story with fantastic acting. So sad they didn't make more seasons.

Emily So surprised about the negative reviews of this. I think this was an excellent piece of scriptwriting, so emotive and interesting. No, it may not have been 100% historically accurate but it is drama not a documentary, so should not be expected to be. In fact, I had never heard much of the story of the Australian convicts before, and given that this was based on many true stories, I found it very interesting; usually this time period does not normally interest me but the exploration of power, duty and morals of this period were great. After such good character development and acting, I was in tears after the events of the last episode. Beautiful portrayal of humanity.

prosper1 despite shortcomings good take on imperialism. well done in terms of locations, characters and story, but somehow fails to gel. never the less, it is another in the long line of exposing British brutality. it often takes eons to probe into a nation's past and to expose the crime and cruelty perpetrated on lower classes.Downton Abbey, Mutiny on the bounty etc all paint a picture of British cruelty and jimmy mcgovern hits this message. if you read "fatal shore" by Australian writer/critic robert hughes, you find that most people were deported were poor, disenfranchised irish.I look forward to seeing more of this admission of guilt on the part of the British empire in Ireland, Africa, India, the Caribbean, Asia and Australia. There is such a rich, dramatic history of cruelty and perhaps this will serve as an introduction. perhaps McGovern's writing's subtext is that so many have have suffered for the benefit of so few. This holds true for Belgium, Holland, Germany and France. Today this story plays out with Amerika and China exploiting poor folks in ways the more devious than the British could not even imagine.

Linda Daly Well what can I say about this new series? Awful, terrible or a waste of time?All of these descriptions are correct. I only managed to watch 2 episodes. It's historically inaccurate , cast is very small and acting is very bad. It is actually a very good idea for an historical costume drama but BBC got it very wrong this time. If anyone had read The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes, you would know that 25 lashes from a whip would render you bed bound for days, starvation and exhaustion would leave you no time for flirtations, marriage and love. The whole 2 episodes were about sexing up the show. Completely ridiculous! A shame really because it's a great idea for a series.