TELEVISION REVIEW: Will and "Will" Struggle to Find the Drama in Shakespeare's Origin Story [PREVIEW]

It took me several tries to get through all of Will's pilot, and this is coming from someone who loves both Shakespeare's plays and the first two seasons of Reign. For one thing, it's not as if William Shakespeare--as an historical figure or as a fictional character--has been exactly underrepresented in television and film, so already Will has its work cut out for it: what kind of interpretation of Shakespeare, the most famous playwright in pretty much all of history, will Will introduce to make watching it worthwhile?

(https://www.will.tntdrama.com/)

Will has been touted as something of an origin story, where Will Shakespeare, a simple glove-maker from Stratford, leaves behind his wife and three children and makes his way to London in the hopes of becoming the greatest playwright ever. The trailer for Will implied that the show would tell the story of how simple, naive Will became the legendary Shakespeare. That is, a story in which Will begins as a wide-eyed ingenue and, through his involvement in the riotous and sexy London theater scene of the late 1500s, evolves into the vaunted figure whose works we either read in school, saw in films directed by Kenneth Branagh, or some combination of the above...

You can read the complete review at PopMatters here!