Very disappointing

After not being impressed with the pilot episode, I trudged forward and forced myself through the rest of the series. Only six episodes, but I found it completely un-engaging.

- I've seen lots of reviews that say this is confusing. I somewhat agree. I could follow it I think but its so dull it makes it hard to pay attention. The shifting time frame does not serve the story at all, imo. And it was hard to tell when things were taking place. Sometimes the show would signal a jump back or forward in time by changing the lighting and going from a brightly lit scene to dark. But then there were times where the event is at night and next its morning and brightly lit. I was unsure more than once if this was supposed to be a time jump again, or just a new day.

- Very dark, murky lighting. So many of the night scenes were poorly lit/filmed and that made it more difficult to follow. I'm streaming in HD via Amazon Prime. Maybe its the stream or the way Starz encoded the episodes. Whatever the case, most of it looked very poor.

- The Anna Wetherell/Emery Staines relationship wasn't very believable. No chemistry. Their brief meeting on the boat at the beginning failed to show any spark to justify them acting as if they care about each other so much. Anna had more chemistry in her brief liaison with Crosbie.

- It might have helped to show some of the past of Lydia and Francis, so they would seem less as pure selfish villains. That could have been a useful flashback, to give us some inkling of why she loves him so much and then even if we don't like what she's doing, it makes her character more interesting.

- It seemed abrupt how quickly Anne went from leaving Lydia's establishment to being full on opium addict whore. And speaking of that...

- The supernatural element, "astral twin" connection between Anne and Emery seemed completely arbitrary in how it works. Why does her shooting herself shoot him? Why does him smoking opium put her out? If it works this way, why doesn't he feel like he's getting fucked whenever she's working as a whore?

- I think the only character I ever felt the least bit desire to pull for was Crosbie. But he's dead from the beginning.

- The Luminaries? What are they? Suddenly there is this group meeting like some secret society. If there were hits at them all knowing and being aware of each other I didn't see them.

- Ending with a long expository courtroom scene about summed it up for me. Completely forgettable.

I can't imagine there is any demand for a S2 of this, but I wouldn't bother myself. Big letdown from what I expecting when I saw period piece with Eva Green and Eve Hewson. I'm charitably going to rate if 4/10.