Nautilus
Amazon Prime
Disclaimer - I’ve only watched the first few episodes but already thinking about abandoning it.
The backstory of Captain Nemo (that nobody actually asked for). This is the story of how Nemo stole the submarine that he helped design whilst a prisoner of the Bank of Evil- sorry, The East India Mercantile Company. In the process he loses his best friend and co-collaborator but gains a ragtag crew, soon supplemented by all the women and child in (2+1) from a schooner they accidentally ram.
I can’t help but compare this with another show with a similar premise, One Piece. We have a ragtag crew on a special craft pursued by the authorities with their top team and a craft that is the pride of the fleet but the whole feel is completely different - there is so much more nuance and subtelty.
In Nautilus the attempts to give the characters personality comes across as thin to the point of stereotyping, or plain irritating (and sometimes both). Every OP character is their own person and fully formed and rounded. In N the bad guys are evil and / or bumbling often presented as “cannon fodder” (even if the violence is actually quite tame) and generally unlikeable. In OP on the other hand we know that the admiral cares about his men and wants to maintain peace and order on the high seas and carry out his allotted task to the best of his ability. This might put him on a different “side” to Monkey and his crew but we care about the admiral and his marines just as much as we do Monkey and friends. “Good” and “bad” are much more fluid (and realistic) in OP.
Disappointing and rather juvenile, although as we have come to expect with big budget streaming shows the sets, special effects and CGI are top notch. The consensus however, seems to be that a second series is unlikely, which unless the writing improves is no great loss.