Enslaved is an uneven show partially because of the unrelenting sheen of US melodrama and partially because it's divided quite rigidly between the meandering explorations of marine conservation charity "Diving With a Purpose" and the international investigative probings of Afua Hirsch and producer/director Simcha Jacobovici - the latter occasionally with a charismatic and occasionally visibly bored Samuel L in tow. With this in mind I'll split the review into these separate partitions as well:
Diving With a Purpose's parts are, like most targeted archaeology investigations, a wild goose chase, visually tedious and often result in very little material wise. As such the deeply earnest diving squad have to do a lot of padding, sometimes inserting strangely forced "drama" and lot of standing around and praying. When they're with the more understated British crews it throws their melodrama into sharp relief and they end up looking rather foolish which is a shame as their unwavering dedication is quite endearing. The look of relentless concern on the face of diver Kramer Wimberley is the lone highlight of these segments.
If Enslaved were entirely the history segments alone I'd have a lot more love for it, the sequences are slickly shot (they trot the globe with a drone in tow and you get some amazing visuals out of it) and there are some interesting discussions and revelations but some excursions are less educational and more cringe worthy than others and the constant CONSTANT use of reconstructive flashbacks as if imagining someone drowning or people in the past standing around talking is too much of an ask. I understand it's for the US audience but it feels condescending and irritating.
All-in-all Enslaved is a worthy subject with patchy execution - the two separate halves of it never tie together and episodes often feel structureless and end abruptly. Its dense and serious investigations are undermined by its simplistic and melodramatic tone.
