Sinbad

During a street fight being put on for betting, Sinbad (played by Elliot Knight) accidentally kills the son of Lord Akbari (played by Naveen Andrews). In repercussion of his loss, Lord Akbari has Sinbads brother killed in front of him. Escaping before he can be killed himself but his grandmother puts a curse on him for causing his brothers death. The curse will only permit him to stay on dry land for a day, any longer and the necklace he wears will choke him to death. His only course of action to stay is to stow away on a ship and head out to the open seas for adventures. However, not knowing that Lord Akbari still hunts for him and will not stop until Sinbad has paid the full price of his sons death.

Sinbad is an age old story of sailing the seas, going on wondrous adventures, and being in amazing fights. It's one story that should be fun to watch, that is if it is put together well and correctly. Right now, with the premiere episode, I got to say that I was not impressed. Casting in this show was not done right, in fact it should have been switched around a lot. I don't know the actor Elliot Knight, I've never seen him before and if I have I don't remember him, and for all I know he could be a great actor but he's just not the right choice for Sinbad. He's too young, he's too small, and he just don't have that essence of a man who is tough, smart, thieving, and basically a good pirate. However, if they had made Naveen Andrews being Sinbad and reversed it where it was Elliot Knight playing the role of the younger brother to the ruler who is killed, that I would have liked more. Naveen Andrews does a good job playing the angered ruler out for blood, but he seems a better choice for the Sinbad role.

This first episode wasn't all that bad, I just think the casting is wrong for the main character. There's some CGI involved with the ship and other instances that look ok, not high level effects but believable and good for a television science fiction show. Though the writing wasn't too clever where it makes the show a mystery on what's going on or what might happen but it at least kept my attention. In this first episode the story sets up the basis for the show where Sinbad will do a lot of sailing and have to solve a problem on dry land within a day. Eventually he will be hunted down by Lord Akbari and I'm predicting right now that if this show actually makes it past 5 episodes then there will be one episode that will have Sinbad in a situation where is caught by Lord Akbari, his men, or some other evil doer who figures out that Sinbad is going to die after a day on land so he traps/locks Sinbad up to wait out for the day but in the last minute he will be saved. That's my long worded way of saying that the show looks predictable and unimaginative but it also looks like one that could be semi entertaining every other episode.