Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

ronkpken The first episode was very promising, the historical inaccuracies excusable for dramatic licence. Not so the two utterly false and apparently deliberate errors in the other 2 episodes. First the claim that a priest Fr John Gerard participated in the plot, which the BBC only just recently apologised for and re-edited another show "Elizabeth I's secret agents", only to now do it again. And secondly the depiction that the Spanish Ambassador found out about the plot from another priest and then reported it to the fiendishly anti-Catholic Lord Cecil. Both done presumably to make the story more "interesting". Totally unnecessary. Just tell the real story! It's gripping! the naivete of the conspirators letting the letter warning of the explosion to be sent to Monteagle because they thought it was vague enough that Cecil's agent's wouldn't guess. And separately the incredible true story of Fr John Gerard, who rather than the naive young priest relying on others to rescue him, escaped from the Tower (by climbing a rope strung across the moat, not crawling out a drain as sdepicted here) and spent years disguised as a fashionably dressed gambler whilst ministerig to his flock and having numerous hair's breadth escapes.

karen-23799 This was so snore worthy. My first ever review on IMDB, I set up an account just to share my feelings on this show. When I saw the cast I was so excited to see this, but had to force myself to watch the second episode, and am not going to waste any more time on the third episode. It was that bad, a snore fest. I always wonder how some things get made and this is one of those. Hopefully some will enjoy it, but I felt it was a waste of time and talent.

chazwyman The big issue between what Protestantism and Catholicism were actually offering the people is not discussed at all. Let's face facts. These were TERRORISTS who tried to blow up parliament. Yet the series paints these people as heroes. All the sympathy is with the Catholics who had banned their followers access to the Bible; who offered forgiveness of sins for hard cash; whose priests controlled all access to god and controlled all aspect of a person's spiritual life. Not content with this oppression of their own followers they wished to impose their vile ideology upon the English who had rejected the Pope's control over every nation in Europe in favour of religious plurality. How did this travesty come to the screen? Is it any surprise to learn that the writer of this utter nonsense is an Irish Catholic?Aside from being a travesty of history the plot sort of stays on the basic facts, but offers a biased twist in favour of support of terrorism.

Julian Evans There is a famous contemporary illustration of the plotters which depicts Guy (Guido) Fawkes and the others... he doesn't have a shaved head. He doesn't look like a 21st century thug. My point here is that TV drama has now reached a point where it's very difficult to separate fact from complete and utter fiction. This production looks great, but there's so much of our own time in it. I half expect to see a mobile phone appear. Kit Harington (creator and producer) looks and sounds and feels and smells like Jon Snow. Mark Gatiss looks and sounds and feels and smells like Mark Gatiss... is there no other part that this man can play? Liv Tyler makes an unnecessary appearance. Shaun Dooley looks like a supermarket store manager, and behaves like a pastiche of evil, something akin to Mark Heap's wonderful Robert Greene in Upstart Crow.The recent Taboo from Tom Hardy (creator and producer... there's a theme developing here) was at least a complete fiction. The tribal tattoos and bizarre make up on the faces of the children could be argued away as fiction too. It was an orgy of quasi-historic, to be watched from the safety of our centrally-heated living rooms. And that's the same with Gunpowder. It's history for the hipster, the goth, the inked. Tough and uncompromising but ultimately plain wrong.The crowd watching the horrendous executions are neatly spaced and directed. Some with arms aloft, others with hands cupped around mouths. There's no feeling of the pit, 'mosh' or otherwise. Our leading characters are WAY too attractive, too clean, too obvious. Real people don't look like this... and a Catholic hunter who has been told that exterior wall dimensions don't match those of the interior wouldn't give up on this fact the minute that one (very junior) cleric is found in a trunk. It's nonsense. It looks great, it pleases the modern palate, it gives Kit another excuse to brood and pout, but history it isn't. Who was Catesby? After watching this I am none the wiser. I know he's played by Kit Harington... maybe that's enough? But on the other hand, maybe, just maybe, after the Harvey Weinstein thing has been confined to history, we may move away from film and drama that relies upon looks and sex appeal and, instead, moves towards talent, truth and honesty.