Rubbish

mjrsnthl

How can you create an historical drama without the history? The colony was on full rations until 1790. Officers had no monopoly over female convicts. Until July 1788 the First Fleet was anchored in Sydney Cove. The Aborigines are invisible, but were spearing any Europeans who strayed beyond the camp which, unlike this series, was not next to the Pacific. Freeman is seen managing the 100  km to Katoomba, when no European managed this until 1813. On attempting the Blue Mountains in December 1789 William Dawes's party reported that the terrain was entirely hostile. Ross was a Scot and Johnson from Yorkshire. And so it goes on. There appears to be almost a wilful policy of ignoring the extremely well-documented actualities.

If McGovern had wished to set a series in a dystopian nightmare he didn't need to travesty the complex, nuanced and subtle history of early colonial Australia. He could have invented some futuristic corporation, or perhaps imagined a version of Putin's Russia.

score 1/10

mjrsnthl 3 April 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3213435/