Taboo: Season Premiere (Spoilers)

Hello readers. It’s been some time since I’ve written a review but with the new year and the new slot of shows coming out, I’ve decided to dive right back into it. Starting withTaboo the new show starring Tom Hardy, who also created it, and produced by Ridley Scott. Now the trailer, doesn’t tell us a lot about the show, and the synopsis on IMDb simply states that James Delaney (Tom Hardy) builds a shipping empire in the early 1800s. The trailer below shows us some magic, some sex, some death, and a whole lot of drama. All of this and more is promised to us in the first episode and there was a lot about this episode that I liked and very little that I disliked. Many other reviewers, seem to not be that enthused by this show, but honestly I can’t wait to see more of it and am intrigued by the mystery that Hardy has alluded to us, the viewers.

*This review contains many spoilers so you should watch the episode first and then read my thoughts below*

The first thing that stood out to me was the costuming and the set design. Everything looked incredibly authentic and dirty, like you could smell 1800s London. Less Revolution more Penny Dreadful and that’s a huge aspect of television shows and movies that is often forgotten but incredibly important. It can take a viewer right out of the scene if the clothing doesn’t fit the time period. I really felt like I was there and that I wanted to leave, something that I think the creators, Chip Hardy, Tom Hardy, and Steven Knight, wanted to get across to the audience. James doesn’t want to be there and you can absolutely see why.

I also liked how we weren’t spoon fed James’s backstory. The reveal of where he had been, who he was, and why he had returned was accomplished well. Jonathan Pryce and Roger Ashton-Griffiths, who both appeared together on GoT, were excellent in the East India Trading Company scene. More on this point, I though the stakes were created quite adequately. All of them, the poisoning, the insanity, the death of the patriarch, the unusual purchase of a piece of land that ultimately proved to be quite important, all of it was incredibly clichéd but I didn’t hate it and it made sense for these characters. This episode was well planned and everything was delivered to the viewer in a way that made sense.

I also think I will enjoy, although it hasn’t occurred yet, the treatise on race that will most likely occur within this show. James seems to be haunted by slavery, has spent some time in Africa, and the N-word, was used in the episode. All of this leads me to believe that the subject of slavery and race will come up. Now my enjoyment of this show will be affected by how they choose to discuss this, so stay tuned.

Finally, I really enjoyed Tom Hardy. He plays brooding quite well and I liked the scenes where he said very little and the scenes he said quite a lot in equal measure. All of these scenes appeared authentic to the character, James, as we know him. I also really liked his outfit and thought he made quite the intimidating character.

The only aspect of the show that I think would benefit from improvement, and it appears there will be improvement in that area, at least from the next episode sequence that was provided to the viewer, is the female character, James’s sister Zilpha (Oona Chaplin), who was also in GoT. In this episode, she wasn’t given a lot to do and I understand that women, in that day and age, had very little they could do but I think Taboo has some wiggle room here and it does appear as though we will find out more about her and she will carve out her own path. Again, my enjoyment of this show will probably be affected by this.

But, despite that I did enjoy it and I look forward to watching more episodes. What did you think of the premiere of Taboo? Comment below and let me know!