Gunpowder: Season 1 - TV Reviews (2024)

Given its dramatic subject matter, strong performances, and handsome production values, this series should satisfy anyone with a love for British historical drama. It's thoughtful and well-made.

Full Review | Jun 22, 2018

Nasty, visceral and gutsy, as, I'm so sorry to say, is history, and truth.

Full Review | Mar 13, 2018

Compelling historical drama has brutal violence, nudity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 10, 2018

The conspirators' efforts may have come to naught, but the efforts of Bennett, Harington and his co-stars do justice to their history.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2017

For those with only a passing familiarity with the attempted regicide of the Gunpowder Plot, HBO's new miniseries is an engaging, occasionally thrilling primer.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 21, 2017

Director J. Blakeson, along with cinematographer Philipp Blaubach, crafts scenes with equal attention to style and detail, furthering television's efforts to deliver a story that's as visually impressive as its cinematic counterparts.

Full Review | Dec 19, 2017

While I wouldn't recommend Gunpowder as something around which to gather the family as you sip holiday eggnog, it's certainly well-done and harshly engaging.

Full Review | Dec 19, 2017

Gunpowder is less an entertainment than it is a curious, one-off attack on the entire genre of period-piece drama.

Full Review | Dec 19, 2017

While historically accurate, that doesn't make Gunpowder a picnic to watch, or do enough to flesh out the characters.

Full Review | Dec 18, 2017

The biggest issue with Gunpowder, though, is that it's dominated by excessively talky scenes that often unfold in hushed tones and undercut the urgency of what's happening.

Full Review | Dec 18, 2017

Gunpowder locates a human drama at the heart of an event codified in history books as a conflict between monoliths.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 18, 2017

Mr. Bennett's script, while it delineates the issues, doesn't make us care about the people involved. Even capable actors like Mr. Gatiss, Peter Mullan and Shaun Dooley can't make their characters much more than Classics Illustrated cutouts.

Full Review | Dec 18, 2017

The results are entertaining enough (the writing from Ronan Bennett and directing from J Blakeson has a fluidity to it that never makes you check the time) and the cast certainly delivers.

Full Review | Dec 18, 2017

A gluepot of a miniseries with good actors and no pulse.

Full Review | Dec 18, 2017

... "Gunpowder" is too limited in scope to give him enough material to fully form the character.

Full Review | Dec 15, 2017

This depiction of history from the perspective of the powerless fails to spark.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Dec 15, 2017

Not only is Gunpowder better than Game of Thrones' entire latest season, it's the kind of creative project that proves Harington deserves to be watched in the future for more than his puppy eyes or bastard bona fides.

Full Review | Original Score: 8.5/10 | Dec 15, 2017

In an age in which thin stories are often stretched on the rack to produce 10 or 13 hours, Gunpowder lives fast, dies young, and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Full Review | Dec 14, 2017

Kit Harington may have been the presumptive star of Gunpowder, but really this classy reimagining of the 1605 plot was about giving some of our finest character actors the platform to do their thing.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 13, 2017

The plot came to seem more and more naive; I'm not sure if it's the enterprise that was dim and doomed, or the fact that it was being vocalised by a bunch of mucked-up Burberry models.

Full Review | Oct 29, 2017