User reviews

Enslaved is an uneven show partially because of the unrelenting sheen of US melodrama and partially because it's divided quite rigidly between the meandering explorations of marine conservation charity "Diving With a Purpose" and the international investigative probings of Afua Hirsch and producer/director Simcha Jacobovici - the latter occasionally with a charismatic and occasionally visibly bored Samuel L in tow. With this in mind I'll split the review into these separate partitions as well:

Diving With a Purpose's parts are, like most targeted archaeology investigations, a wild goose chase, visually tedious and often result in very little material wise. As such the deeply earnest diving squad have to do a lot of padding, sometimes inserting strangely forced "drama" and lot of standing around and praying. When they're with the more understated British crews it throws their melodrama into sharp relief and they end up looking rather foolish which is a shame as their unwavering dedication is quite endearing. The look of relentless concern on the face of diver Kramer Wimberley is the lone highlight of these segments.

If Enslaved were entirely the history segments alone I'd have a lot more love for it, the sequences are slickly shot (they trot the globe with a drone in tow and you get some amazing visuals out of it) and there are some interesting discussions and revelations but some excursions are less educational and more cringe worthy than others and the constant CONSTANT use of reconstructive flashbacks as if imagining someone drowning or people in the past standing around talking is too much of an ask. I understand it's for the US audience but it feels condescending and irritating.

All-in-all Enslaved is a worthy subject with patchy execution - the two separate halves of it never tie together and episodes often feel structureless and end abruptly. Its dense and serious investigations are undermined by its simplistic and melodramatic tone.

I was left wondering who this was aimed at? On one hand it seemed to gloss over the horrors of this vile occurrence but then seemed bent on entertainment. The episode on emancipation was the most interesting because it told an investigation story but then failed to even mention William Wilberforce ( and if you don't know who he was go look him up)

This is ok but not as good as you'd expect from its promotion and the involvement of Samuel L Jackson. Some of the cinematography is quite good and it tells some interesting stories. However it's quite dumbed down and feels like one of the American made 'documentaries' you see on the history channel ie light on academic detail/heavy on entertainment. For some reason most of the story is told by a group of divers and a journalist. Fair enough but none of them seem to have any academic or expert background at all. There are some experts but not many. Samuel L Jackson also has very limited involvement. He features quite a lot in the last episode but in the other episodes he's probably there for 5-10mins max, often not saying anything at all.

Overall I feel like in four hours I could have learnt a lot more of what is clearly a very important subject. I don't think this series did the subject justice at all.

Just watched ep. 1 and was moved by much of it and found the rest compelling.

If you haven't watched something and/or find the subject matter of no interest to you, why try and discourage others from actually experiencing it and forming their own opinion? Look at the rest of his reviews for context.

After promising so much with an obviously large budget, great production and, of course SLJ, this show rapidly revealed itself as a 'product of 2020'. I'd suggest that most viewers were already aware of the horrors of the African slave trade and were expecting insight and historical fact. Instead, they were served up large portions of conjecture alongside some badly constructed narratives that seemed to have served only to justify the very expensive diving expeditions. Add in the bizarrely staged / dubbed conversations, and the end result is an unwatchable, virtue-signalling mess, devoid of historical accuracy and authenticity. What a shame and a complete missed opportunity.

This is such an important show to have right now! It really taught me a lot and is so interesting, as someone who doesn't watch many documentaries I really enjoyed this show. The dives were so exciting!

Overproduced and disjoint at the same time.The Americans can not make a documentary without hugely oversimplifying the story.The BBC should have done this anyone with some historical knowledge will find this to be very pathetically done.This is no better than the dumb history channel documentaries.

This was a great piece of information and I apprieciate this part of our history... Thanks Samuel!

This is a powerful, well researched series that gives voices to those that history forgot. I didn't know any of the important information on the slave trade before watching the series. The series deals with sensitive issues done in a respectful ways, and provides many different perspectives from experts.

I really enjoyed getting to know the amazing divers and watching their incredible adventures to uncover the truth.

I can't wait for the next episode!

As stated. So far, this series provides accurate and detailed information about the Atlantic Slave Trade. I have made a study of the Atlantic Slave Trade on my own since 2012, and the facts that they present in this show are correct.

There have been detractors commenting on it and I will settle them. That means speaking very frankly, so here goes.

1) I have had my genetics tested, and I am as white as a cotton ball. If I can stand to look at this, so can you, so stop criticizing the series in an attempt to fool other people into thinking you're not afraid. I understand fear; my message is this: You.Will.Survive.This. No matter how bad it makes you feel, you will survive it. Your lives are not in danger. If these facts make you feel bad, well, they should. That doesn't mean YOU are bad.

2) We have to face this. Now. Not later, after it has been swept back under the rug for another 100 years, NOW. We cannot make progress on having equal justice for everyone regardless of skin color until we do face this. The days of suppression are at an end, and it's time to recognize that and summon our courage.

So here we go. This is not about blame, it is about facts. We don't include Barbary Pirates, the Arabs, the Romans, prehistory, the American Civil War or any other time period because this series is about THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE. Focus please. Are you sure you watched it? The Ashanti apology for their participation was covered in Episode 1.

You're darn right it's triggering. We need this because we don't have any trouble looking at other forms of slavery in the past. Anyone of us is reasonably comfortable talking about the Romans taking Briton tribesmen as prisoners and slaves, or even about indentured servitude, but we still won't talk about black slavery. See point 1 above about fear. So, failing to come up with any factual objection to the material, you criticized Mr. Jackson's weight? Talk about a fall back position! And a lack of creativity.

As for, "Sad / still bending / white man's acceptance / never fighting / being freed / racism / politics / I'm not the problem / its all your fault somehow / Kunta Kinte / cowardliness and selfishness... WHAT ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT EXACTLY? Seriously. Did that have anything to do with anything but your own insecurity? See point 1 about fear.

Granddaughter, I save you for last. I will only say that it is so very sad to see you so threatened that you will do anything to try and tear this series down and erase it. The only thing that is sadder is a second generation American who has clearly not learned anything from the genuine horrors faced by her grandparents. They came here to escape a terrible evil, and you owe them more courage than this. The problem isn't the series, it's the fact that it scares you. See point 1 about fear. Having a dominant culture and allowing the remnants of other cultures to barely survive unacknowledged on the outskirts of it is not a beautiful multicultural society. We won't have one of those until we have honesty about the past.

For those who hung on this long, go see the series, it's GREAT!

If you are into diving and like long stretches of video depicting divers on the sea bottom looking for a piece of ivory then this is the show for you.

This series was informative and fascinating, and sometimes made me cry. Many of the stories are heart wrenching and many are inspirational.

So Sam Jackson signs up to let White people retell our history. As someone else stated the man is totally bored in the production. So how much did they pay him to use his name to push this Israeli production as a historical narrative. You would expect so much? But where are the Africans behind the lens? So in 2020 it is that same exploitation piece. This guy got famous off the poor Ethiopians by telling their story for them and now after doing his crooked version of his story and propaganda is now taking on some neglected African history. Tells you a lot about African people that still "The lions tells the tale of the hunt" and pretty poorly also. Where is the substance? Where is the grit?

Yes, this documentary TV series, like every other creative work (e.g., symphony, TV program, movie, play, sporting event, religious ceremony) is designed to provoke. What? How? That ultimately lies with each unique viewer and the unconscious conditioning and perspective brought to the experience. As with every other offering, there are constraints of scope with which to contend. No, this is not an exhaustive documentary on all civilizations of all periods of time through all dimensions of reality on the space-time continuum. However, it does share a portion of history to which most of us haven't been privy. Again, what we choose to do with that information is the responsibility of the viewer. I've chosen to embrace this as an opportunity to develop awareness and compassion, for the enslavers and enslaved. This has spurred my long standing curiosity with the human mind and its capacity to nurture and steadfastly hold onto conflicting thoughts and values. How can we transcend the inherently dichotomous structure of the mind and become our highest and best? This series feeds my insatiable yearning to learn, understand, love, and evolve. What is your appetite?

I can not believe what they are "discovering" in this show it is like history for 6 year olds.Some of their revelations have been historical facts for 400 years.I am a layman but have a library of books on this period of history it is too bad they dummied this documentary down so much.

This is a fantastic series. The "reviewers" that make the historical inaccuracy claims are the ones with the not-so-hidden agenda. Meticulous research is a hallmark of the show so far, (3 episodes in.) It's transformative to see people of color telling their own stories with pride, remorse, dignity, and pain. History textbooks do not give the account of the Maroons in Suriname. History textbooks do not tell the stories of mass graves and insurance settlements for shipping companies. SLJ put together a $&@$"!?& of a great documentary!

Dreadful. Leave documentaries to the Brits/Europeans. A lot of money wasted on pretty pictures and poorly researched storys. Brushed over the most interesting interview with an Asante lady in Kumasi Ghana who was explaining how the slaves were rounded up by locals! Tribe war spoils so to speak ,( of course doesnt justify what came next for these poor souls). One could feel SLJ distancing himself from this shoddy work.

Years before this series, I always wondered if anyone had explored the Atlantic for lost slave ships so when I heard about this show, I was in. And it didn't disappoint.

The exploration was adventurous and thrilling, the discoveries were FASCINATING, and the stories were moving.

Shipwrecks, archaeology, history, treasures and artifacts...my inner child was so satisfied watching this series. Don't pay attention to the imdb score and the review-bombers. Everyone who rated this 1 star is probably pro-slavery.

I was really looking forward to this documentary as the premise seemed really interesting.

The documentary feels disjointed. The historic factual information from the historians with Samuel L Jackson are great. There were things I think are probably widely known but there were lots of these parts that brought context to the scale of slavery. I found these parts engaging and interesting and more than once exclaimed aloud about them. Had the documentary been just these parts, this would be a very different review.

Then we come to the diving parts. These felt jarring. There's interesting, shocking sections with Samuel and Afra at the door of no return and the like. It then basically cuts to the diving team having a seemingly scripted discussion about the perils of diving in the English Channel followed by lots of faux perilous voice over about the technicalities while they bring up an item probably returned to the UK on a slave ship. It honestly felt like someone had changed the channel. This feeling continued through the whole series. The diving part felt unnecessarily technical and unnecessary in general. It didn't tell the stories in the way I had hoped and only really detracted from the non diving sections.

Do yourself a favour and look up documentaries by David Olusoga.

Enslaved documentary series is eye opening and it's the first time I've seen coverage of telling the stories of Africans who lost their lives and and the ships that sank during the inhumane journey of the slave trade. I highly recommend this series also as an educational documentary for middle and high school students. The execution of this series was excellent from the interview footage, to reenactments, historical records, and motion graphics. I really appreciate the Black diving team as well. That's a rare story told. Enslaved is my new favorite documentary series. I look forward to seeing the remaining episodes.

This is about a organisation Dwp diving with a purpose who have traced some shipwrecks that they believe may be connected to slave ships that sank, they found objects that say they were used in slavery, they then get upset about a spoon and ivory. They risk their lives diving for these objects but the laws prevent them from recovering bigger objects. The slave trade was brutal and story should be told, but the first and second program are slow and dragged out. The series does get better and the story does show that even black people were involved at point of sale, but as slavery was accepted at the time people who were slaves and educated Americans rose up and help free slaves before the civil war. If you stick with the program it does have some merit, but just not all about begin of slavery, but more about ships and how slaves were packed and died on shipwrecks. The stories in episode three of people escaping slavery and finding freedom was more interesting than story of a shipwrecks.

I knew this would be good when I saw journalist Simcha Jacobovici in the preview. He's a great investigative journalist with an eclectic background. So, going in, you don't have to rely on Samuel L. Jackson's name alone. I learned a LOT from watching this (and have, so far, only seen three episodes). It is nice to see a documentary full of facts and not just pathos or emotional reactions to thinks presented. This is obviously an emotional issue and I think that, with a little searching your own family tree, anyone can find empathy with regards to the plight of African slaves-especially if you had family in living in Ireland prior to 1860. And, to put it bluntly, the veiled racism in some of these reviews is disheartening. But, this is America. God forbid anyone disrupt the caste system!

Had hugh hopes for this, but is really boring and i was unable to finish the show. samuel l. jacksons part is also very small. Did not here him use motherf....... once. really dissapointing