Starz's Black Sails has now arrived for UK audiences on Amazon Instant and it has proved a largely enjoyable romp. The show combines the high seas adventure of Pirates of the Caribbean with the political backstabbing and gratuitous violence and nudity of Game of Thrones (albeit with a much lower budget than either) and, if it has thus far failed to quite hit the lofty heights suggested by that combination, there are certainly enough elements in play that could be built on and improved in future. Sure enough a second season has recently been commissioned. A large part of the selling point of Black Sails lies in its mixing of existent fact and fiction. The main narrative arc interweaves a prequel story for characters from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island - Captain Flint, Long John Silver, Billy Bones - with stories involving real, historical pirates - Charles Vane, Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Benjamin Hornigold. This has the added benefit of making it pretty easy to guess elements of the next season and who might appear. Nothing has yet been revealed about the Season 2 plot and the only new cast member announced is Spooks and Whitechapel's Rupert Penry-Jones (who has past form in this area having played Squire Trelawney in the 2012 Sky version of Treasure Island), but it would be a surprise if none of these pirates cropped up in it at some point.
