Underground

What truly sets the series apart from similar narratives, however, is its narrative breadth, its not entirely successful but nevertheless enthralling scope in detailing the world of the pre-Lincoln south, from the white men and women who rose to power by enslaving persecuting, and, yes, killing African-Americans to those African-Americans who sacrificed, in every imaginable way, to survive the times.

But for all its dramatic pulse, historic details and narrative twists, Underground simply takes too long to get going; it isn't until the fourth episode that the show's real story, and potential, reveal themselves.

Underground lingers on the slave experience, and that experience is appropriately awful and inhumane and certainly dramatic. But it’s also a show that wanders a bit too freely, undercutting its important subject matter and forward momentum by interfering with itself. As a show, it needs to learn how to keep it together.

Underground’s provocative premise is shortchanged by a corny and anxious tendency to goose the narrative. It is hard to imagine a more inherently gripping premise than escaping slaves, but Underground tosses in pop music, lurid sex scenes, and a breakneck pace, undermining its own ambition.