Will

Just watched the first episode last night. Aside from the garish colors and the punk overtones, I was enthralled. Like Shakespeare's stage directions, the bio for historical Will is sparse leaving ample room for dramatic embellishment. I thought it was clever the way the writers wove ideas and fragments of speeches from the plays throughout the first episode. Especially enjoyed the "duel" of words between Robert Greene and Will in iambic pentameter. If the rest of the episodes prove as entertaining and engrossing as the first, this series will be a treat! Oh, and after about the first 10 min I was over the garish colors and punk overtones.

As you might have guessed by now, Will makes practically no attempt to be historically accurate.

Critics everywhere have cried out in collective grief. But who cares? Da Vinci's Demons had very little to do with the real-life Leonardo -- that didn't stop it from running for three seasons!

Like Demons, Will is "historical fiction". Not a biography; not a serious reconstruction of the life of The Bard. It's a drama loosely based on characters loosely based on vague descriptions of people who lived at some point.

It's entertainment. And in that, it does a pretty good job. There's your usual cable TV "must-haves": violence, sex, backstabbing -- general depravity. Everyone's a little greasy, one way or the other. There are crazy sub-plots. If they hadn't called the main character Shakespeare, the critics would have been much happier with it.

But, alas, Shakespeare appears to be sacred. And maybe, that's the cow Will is trying to slaughter. Set the table, we're having steak.

Fab casting. I love the trade off betwixt Olde English and New Age acting. The Music is a breath of fresh air and of course its not true to history completely , its entertainment, stop being so stuffy. I adore it. Period pieces can go one of two ways either pomp or fun , this is fun at its best . Bravo to all and Laurie Davidson ... you totally own the screen.

He loved modernizing things....if this was true to time it would be disgusting... read some history! The royals were disgusting.

I love this show! It explored some historical "tabloid material" with no true claims, but the theory's being exposed; was enjoyable! The costumes are mind blowing ....It makes me crave to bring some of these adornments to our current fashion.

This is definitely a period piece

It saddens me that people are complaining that London is too colourful, that the characters are too simple and clownish, when that was exactly what Shakespeare himself did. He was bright, sexual, crude and clever and so was this. Maybe it's a little messy but it has so much spirit, so much fire. Every moment is interesting, and that was exactly how the man himself wrote.