Stream It Or Skip It?

Washington Black is the kind of series that tries to add some lightness to the serious themes it examines. How does it do that? By giving its protagonist a journey to go on as he escapes slavery in Barbados, ultimately reaching a tenuous freedom in Nova Scotia.

Opening Shot: “HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA. 1837.” We see the port at Halifax, and we hear Medwin Harris (Sterling K. Brown) say, “Welcome to Halifax, the last stop on the Underground Railroad. Everybody step off with their own story, and boy have I got one for you. It’s a story about family lost and family found, about a young man and the boy he used to be.”

The Gist: In Halifax, Washington “Wash” Black (Ernest Kingsley Junior) is 19 and living in Harris’ boarding house; Harris has known Wash since he arrived in Halifax a few years earlier and they’re close. Wash goes by the name Jack Crawford in Halifax, which helps him escape the bounty hunters that have come looking for him since he escaped the Barbados sugar plantation where he was enslaved. That was eight years prior, when he was just 11.

Wash has a scientific mind, and we see him making a model of a flying machine that he’s been eager to build. We flash back eight years to the sugar plantation, where we see young Wash (Eddie Karanja) and the other enslaved workers being mistreated by the plantation’s owner, Erasmus Wilde (Julian Rhind-Tutt). Along comes a man riding a tractor-like vehicle powered by steam; it’s Erasmus’ brother Christopher “Titch” Wilde (Tom Ellis), an inventor who thinks the tractor is the first step towards the flying machine he wants to build.

Titch, an abolitionist, asks his brother to let him have one of his enslaved workers as his assistant. Of course, Erasmus sees the irony in this, but grants his brother’s request; Titch picks young Wash, seeing a spark in his eyes and a keen interest in science. Titch treats Wash like an equal, but when his other brother, Phillip (Chris Patrick-Simpson) arrives, that treatment is a source of tension.

Back in Halifax, Tanna Goff (Iola Evans) arrives with her father (Rupert Graves) from London. She grew up in the Solomon Islands with her mother, who died when Tanna was about ten. As a biracial woman, Tanna wants to embrace all of her history, but her father wants her to fit into proper society circles, even in Canada. This includes marrying her off to Billy McGee (Edward Bluemel), a handsome young aristocrat who helped broker their journey. There is a definite attraction between her and Wash, though.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds and based on Esi Edugyan’s novel of the same name (Brown is an executive producer), Washington Black has the same world-spanning adventure vibe of the recent AMC series Nautilus.

Our Take: The story of Washington Black will be split between 19-year-old Wash trying to bring Titch’s ideas to life in Nova Scotia and 11-year-old Wash’s journey from Barbados to Canada. He escapes the plantation after a death, but we don’t know who’s death that is by the end of the first episode.

It’s definitely a story that’s worth following, even as it goes back and forth in time, thanks to the fine performances by Kingsley and Karanja as the older and younger Washington Black. It’s surprising how much continuity there is between the two performances, with Karanja actually looking like Kingsley and moving in a manner that belies young Wash’s age.

Even though the story promises to be more about Wash’s adventures and how the older Wash falls for Tanna, the undercurrent of slavery is always there. It’s contrasted in how Titch treats Wash versus how both his brothers see him. It’s also there in how he’s constantly needing to hide in plain sight from bounty hunters who come to Halifax to collect the $50 that’s on his head (it’s 1837, after all), armed with a drawing of him when he was 11.

However, what we’re looking forward to seeing is Wash’s escape and the journey he takes to get to freedom in Halifax. Where will it take him? Of course, if you know the book you know the answer to that question. But it’s that journey that will be at the center of this series, even as we see the older Wash thriving in Halifax.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Phillip takes Wash into the woods and points a gun at him.

Sleeper Star: Of course, we’ll watch Sterling K. Brown read a grocery list. But he’s in a supporting role here as Medwin, and he does just enough to remind viewers how good he is without taking the spotlight away from Kingsley. We’re also enthralled with Iola Evans’ witty performance as Tanna.

Most Pilot-y Line: Erasmus, being the bloodthirsty master he is, tells his workers after he recovers the body of an enslaved worker that killed himself, “Killing yourself is a crime against me, as surely as you steal my horse and slit its throat.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Washington Black has a sense of swashbuckling adventure to it, even though it’s a story with serious undertones about slavery and how being in a safe harbor didn’t mean enslaved people were really free.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.