Underground: The Macon 7

March 10, 2016 7:50 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

In 1857, a group of slaves on a Georgia plantation make the dangerous decision to journey 600 miles north for the promise of freedom.

AV Club: WGN America’s Underground is a taut thriller disguised as a history lesson

Vulture: Underground Series Premiere Recap: The Road to Freedom

Variety: Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Aldis Hodge Discuss Nation’s Early Civil Rights Movement

posted by oh yeah! (5 comments total)

Not sure how many people get the WGN channel -- I only heard about this show because I was having some Leverage nostalgia recently, and wondered what Aldis Hodge was up to, and found he had this new series.

I thought this was a pretty strong pilot -- great cast, really interesting music choices, well-paced. Looking forward to seeing how all the plots are going to come together.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:42 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

This was good - heavy topic, great acting, interesting set-up -- all well done from my perspective. I'm interested to see where the set-ups go in the second episode and beyond.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:12 PM on March 16, 2016

I'll be watching more of this. I love a good escape story, even when it's not scored by Elmer Bernstein.
posted by asperity at 10:05 PM on March 16, 2016

Great, new episode thread is up, I'll keep posting unless anyone beats me to them. Thankfully it looks like Vulture is going to do recaps. It takes me forever to try to do a real write-up, but I don't feel guilty about just posting the dvr blurb if I can link to a real recap.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:15 AM on March 17, 2016

How Historically Accurate Is 'Underground'? Star Jurnee Smollett-Bell Found Meaning In The Past & Present -- this Bustle article doesn't answer the question directly, but at least Smollett-Bell did research for her role:

"This is definitely not the kind of role where you can just show up on set," Smollett-Bell says of playing Rosalee, which is her most research-intensive role to date. Her preparation began with books that tell slave narratives, but the actress says no resource was more powerful than actually hearing the voices of former slaves. "I heard their actual voices because you can go on the Library of Congress website and listen to the recordings," she says. "In the 1930s, Freedom Writers went down to interview men and women who were still alive who had survived slavery. Some of them had been kids, but some of them had strong memories of it, they were in their 90s and 80s, but it is an amazing resource."

The music is interesting:
* Black Skinhead by Kanye West (see also: BLKKK SKKKN HEAD (Explicit) video)
* Keep Moving by Great Wolf
* Don't Get In My Way by Zack Hemsey
* I Got Shoes (Walk All Over God's Heaven) by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (by the Underground Cast in the show)
* Paranavigar by Jarina De Marco
posted by filthy light thief at 9:18 AM on March 17, 2016 [4 favorites]