Boardwalk Empire is Martin Scorsese’s latest production, a gangster story in the form of a TV series. Revolving around Steve Buscemi’s character Nucky Thompson during the prohibition era in Atlantic City. I watched the first season of the much hyped epic and drew some first impressions.

As many, my initial enthusiasm for another gangster TV series was high, add to the fact it was set in the prohibition era and directed by Martin Scorsese! I would say I had an initial bias if assuming it would be epic. I was wrong.

Even though there are countless critics and awards praising Boardwalk Empire, I’m not convinced. The characters are so sporadic its hard to keep track of who is who! I might add I also watched the season all in one go so it god knows how it must be to those who watched it weekly.

These are my main problems with the show:

• Characters are hard to keep track of – Like I mentioned, characters with no seeming importance suddenly get their own scene, not sure if I just couldn’t keep up but adding characters and ignoring others made it hard to develop a relationship.
• Steve Buscemi is a shit lead actor for Nucky Thompson – I loved Stevie in Reservoir Dogs, heck its one of my favourite movies, but this seemed really really bad. I don’t know what specifically put me off is character but I just could not get into it, he had no emotion or expression, he was monotonous.
• Not enough gangster in this gangster TV show – I’d say 60% of the show about this Irish immigrant woman and her complex love for the lead character, WTF get out of my gangster story, I want action, violence, betrayal anything at all apart from a shit love story, for the love of god why does she even get mentioned, I could not care less.

Maybe its because I had such high hopes for this show that it left such a sour taste in my mouth, but my recommendation to anyone wanting to get into a new TV series is to avoid Boardwalk Empire.