A good idea for a TV show is a precious thing and, on paper, Nautilus is a great idea. It’s a prequel to Jules Verne’s 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, providing a fuller backstory for Captain Nemo, the mercurial captain of the futuristic submarine Nautilus, and following the majestic craft on its first adventures.
As per Verne’s follow-up novel The Mysterious Island, Nemo here is Indian and played by Shazad Latif – who has a knack for filling small roles with lasting cult appeal (including IT genius Tariq Masood in Spooks and Clem Fandango (“Yes I can hear you, Clem Fandango!”) in Toast of London. Now he’s a dominant leading man, a naval engineering wizard who, in 1857, is working as an indentured labourer for the rapacious East India Company in Bombay. To prevent the ship he has been forced to build being used for fresh colonial evil, and to win his freedom, he steals the Nautilus and sets off on an indefinite maritime escapade, helped by a crew of fellow revolutionaries, random hangers-on and a handful of hostages.
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