The Buccaneers (2023)

The Buccaneers has its flaws, but those flaws become easier to forgive the more you spend time with it and realize it knows exactly what it is and isn't afraid to show it.

We’re left with a group coming-of-age adventure, something that feels as if it could easily be set, instead, on an undergrad semester abroad, in 2023. And yet—the romance is compelling, and the wisteria is wisteria. I watched all eight episodes of the series in a white heat, and I am ready for more.

If the Netflix drama was a blushing bride dreaming of happily ever after, The Buccaneers might be her worldlier cousin — more skeptical and more pragmatic, but with an intriguing sharpness that feels all her own.

While Season 2 culminates with an ending that could indicate a bold future direction for the story, the series continues to struggle at finding a natural balance between a frothy, feminist romp and a melancholy period drama — when, like Nan, it could thrive once it ultimately makes up its mind about what it wants to be from this point forward.

Romance isn't the main objective, even if the series might flirt with it on occasion by incorporating a range of scenes from hands subtly, illicitly touching to characters falling into each other's arms with passionate abandon. Instead, the finishing touches here are more realistic, and often more cynical, but whether they'll leave a sour taste in the mouth depends entirely on what viewers are hoping to see from the story itself.

The Buccaneers is entertaining enough, but just doesn’t feel like it’s going to go much deeper than the Yanks vs. Brits trope we see throughout the first episode.

Wharton’s emotional architecture—the unspoken, subtextual longing and frustration and ambition—is made dully explicit, in writing so leaden and staged that it feels ripped right out of Selling Sunset. .... Only if you think in terms of an algorithmic TV pitchbot does the show make sense.

So predictable. Except for the clothes and the locations who are gorgeous there is no reason to watch. I could not go past the second episode and do not intent to watch anymore.

It’s hard to understand what exactly went wrong with this series, but I can tell that it lost me at a party scene where it had a really good song (be sweet by japanese breakfast) playing throughout a party. No effort given to make it blend in, it was just playing in the background. The editing really felt like a juniors project.

Verging on the unwatchable. This tale **** of giggling, screeching half-wits following their mentor around Victorian society is up there with the worst shows out there at the moment. A shame some of the obviously big budget wasn't spent on the script.