No idea what to expect, but became totally hooked for these reasons: 1. Intelligent dialogue and storyline. A very well researched period piece dealing with both early 20th century British culture (a little American too); influence of music in culture (in this case mostly jazz); aristocracy relations with the poor (things never change); black (and other groups) relations with white power (money, politics, etc.). 2. Superb acting. 3. Superb period singing and accompanying music. 4. Most importantly for a quality film is attention to detail. 5. Suspenseful drama (Whodunit?). 6. Left room for a continuation which, unfortunately, doesn't appear to be in the works. 7. Interesting final episode of tidying up loose ends, even interviewing the dead as if they never died.

I got STARZ just so I could watch this mini-series but can only attest to the first three episodes. First, the production values--the costumes, set designs, lighting, etc. are stunning and Emmy-worthy. However,the storyline as a whole could use a bit of work. Personally, I have to care about someone in the story for the storyline to work and unfortunately the only person I cared about in the entire cast is killed off by the end of episode 3. I felt they tried to pull a "Lady Sybil" on us ala Downton Abbey, without the impact. I knew there would be a murder mystery of some sort, but didn't expect the victim to be a band member. And I wanted to see more of the Jessie character, who was really promising. The music is not as good as the "real" jazz back in the day, at least the jazz my dad used to listen to, and play when he was in a band. All of the other characters are relatively superficial, and perhaps too modern, if you will, to truly be believable as people from the 1930s. Would a white European woman really kiss a black man in public back then? Doubtful. Are the all-too-common nude scenes really necessary to move the story along? Nope, and not all that sexy either. I'm assuming the mystery will be solved by the end of the series, but I'm not sure I'll care.

This television series from the celebrated Stephen Poliakoff portrays 1930s upper class London but focuses on a Black Jazz band travelling the clubs of Britain, mixing with the high ups of polite British society but reveals an underbelly of prejudice, secrets and murder.Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Louis Lester, trained in the USA but his jazz band takes London by storm when armed with two female singers. Matthew Goode plays a music journalist who champions the band in his music paper. John Goodman turns up as a mogul who wants to buy newspapers.Although there are twists and turns, Poliakoff needs to stick to writing, needs a stronger story editor and get someone else to direct and interpret his words to the screen.It looks good, there is a fine all star cast from Jacqueline Bisset, Jane Asher, Anthony Head. The music and song which was written originally for the series is fine with a few memorable tunes but it meanders too much. The murder story has little mystery as you have a rough idea who the culprit might be.

Prepare yourself for six hours of bad writing, bad acting, and really, really bad music.Writer-director Stephen Poliakoff has become the M. Night Shyamalan of British TV drama. He started strong, with dramas that seemed to be new and different and even (hideous new modifier!) award-worthy. Then, with each new project, his threadbare bag of tricks became more familiar and predictable; what once seemed endearingly offbeat became simply irritating, and Poliakoff's narrative deceits became increasingly obvious, no longer distracting us from his inability to create living characters or coherent plots.The downward spiral has led to this sloppy, boring mess of a mini-series. Good luck getting through the whole thing, and if you do, you will almost certainly be disappointed by the limp ending.Particularly irritating is the music. Poliakoff presumes to resurrect a largely forgotten era of British entertainment, but the newly-written songs on offer here do not capture the spirit of the originals. Not only are they displeasing to the ear and badly sung, but the viewer is forced to hear them over and over and over.It is hard to see how Poliakoff's next project can be worse than this, but if the trajectory holds, he will find a way to make it so.