Boundless

The series is ok as historical dramas go. My main complaint is that most of the time the screen is so dark you struggle to see what is happening.... about 75 percent of the picture takes place either at night or in the dark recesses of a ship!

Considerable time spent languishing with starving and sick sailors on the decks of leaking ships, along with the occasional gory battle scene. But none of that is gratuitous. It's part of the self-immersion into a tale of extraordinary courage, perseverance, and survival. Despite the opinions of others, I find the film pretty true to known history, at least with a brush just broad enough to embrace good story-telling. For fans of historical drama, this is an excellent past time, with everything a good adventure movie should have: good acting, believable character development, interesting direction, good writing, excellent dialogue, and wide cinematography. All in all, a story told with great emotional depth, and well worth the commitment to six episodes.

The drama and action are pretty standard for a setting like this.

However, the historical accuracy is sooo bad. For gods sake they didnt even get the direction of Magellans voyage correct. Magellan went westward while this show has him going east. Yikes.

This will entertain anyone who has never read anything on the subject. That's why it doesn't get the lowest score.

There was no need for "artistic freedom" to change so much of what happened in reality. I guarantee the real story is much more interesting. Read Zweig or Bergreen. The best thing about this time of culture clash of civilizations and exploration, is that there is no script that can be better than reality. The best bet is to be faithful to the events, because they are very well documented.

I'll just leave here the sentence at the end of this production as an example of the complete absence of historical support: "With this new route to the West, Spain controlled the spice trade for decades".

What? How can something that claims to be historic end up with this blatant lie?

None of the advisors heard of the Treaty of Zaragoza(1529)? In it and after some skirmishes between the Spanish and Portuguese in the Spice Islands with Spanish defeat, Spain accepted money from Portugal to settle the matter leaving control of the spice trade to remain in the hands of the Portuguese until the Dutch took it much later.

If this is the historical rigor, I think it would have been better to end by saying that Elcano, who is meant to be exaggeratedly glorified and who under no criteria can be considered the greatest hero of Magellan's expedition, a few years later, sailed through space in a winged ship, having been the first to surf the rings of Saturn with his surfboard covered in cloves and cinnamon.

As a Briton, I knew very little about Magellan.

Historic details I don't know in detail. The dirt and squalor of the time look realistic. The smallness of the cannons, and a ship being steered with a lever in the middle of the ship. Things that go against expectations.

The series could have had less on details of the suffering on the later parts of the voyage. And as others say, it was not a profitable route at the time, given the vastness of the Pacific.