review of Black Sails 3.1 

Black Sails was back tonight for its third season, picking up and putting in motion all the pieces from the end of the second season, broken, whole, and all parts in between, in fine, cunning, swashbuckling form.

Flint, for my money, was better than he\'s been since the first season, far better for sure than the second season, dishing out death to anyone remotely connected to the murder of Miranda.   There will no doubt be others on the list, but truly the best move of Flint tonight was what he exhorted his crew to do when faced with the choice of surrender and pardon, or fight against impossible overwhelming odds, by Hornigold: take the third option, and sail away into a storm that "kills ships," as someone in his crew put it.   Coming up a third option, regardless of how bad it might be, is the only possibly winning alternative when the two other options are worse - this has a logic Sherlock Holmes would\'ve have understood and approved.

Eleanor could use some of this logic, too, placed in the unwanted position of helping the British Navy against her beloved Nassau.   There\'s no way she\'ll do the Admiralty\'s bidding for too long - not to mention that Vane despite the complexity of their relationship will likely apply his considerable savvy sooner or later to free her.

Hey, Ray Stevenson - who was so strong in Rome - is on hand as Blackbeard, aka Edward Teach (I always liked that name, maybe because I\'m a professor), and this promises some high excitement ahead, to say the last.  In real history, Blackbeard was part of Hornigold\'s crew for a while, but who knows what role be\'ll play for or against Flint\'s plans, given that Flint is fictional.  Probably both, and more.

It was great night to see a show about piracy on the high seas, given the blizzard of swirling snow in the New York area, and I\'m looking forward to more (drama on the high seas, that is).

See also Black Sails 2.1: Good Combo, Back Story, New Blood ... Black Sails 2.2: A Fine Lesson in Captaining ... Black Sails 2.3: "I Angered Charles Vane" ... Black Sails 2.4: "Fire!" ... Black Sails 2.5: Twist! ... Black Sails 2.6: Weighty Alternatives, and the Medium is the Message on the High Seas ...Black Sails 2.7: The Governor\'s Daughter and the Gold ... Black Sails 2.9: The Unlikely Hero ... Black Sails Season 2 Finale: Satisfying Literate and Vulgar

And see also Black Sails: Literate and Raunchy Piracy ... Black Sails 1.3: John Milton and Marcus Aurelius ... Black Sails 1.4: The Masts of Wall Street ...Black Sails 1.6: Rising Up ... Black Sails 1.7: Fictions and History ... Black Sails 1.8: Money

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Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.  His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003),  Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).  His short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.  Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"  “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),  “Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

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