Airdate: Moby Dick

ABC1 will air a 2010 miniseries adaptation on the classic Herman Melville novel, Moby Dick.

This has an all-star cast with William Hurt in the lead role of Captain Ahab, plus Ethan Hawke, Gillian Anderson, Donald Sutherland and Charlie Cox.

Interestingly, this German production hasn’t yet aired in the US so there aren’t yet many reviews online.

Nantucket. The little island off the east coast of the United States is the capital of American whaling in 1850. Sailors, traders, harpooners they all hope to make big money on land or on a whaler and if not, then at least to have big adventures. One of them is Ishmael (Charlie Cox), who wanders through the bustling harbour in search of a whaling boat that will take him out to sea. Together with the homeless boy Pip (Daniel Gordon) and the fear inspiring Polynesian harpooner Queequeg (Raoul Trujillo), he signs on as a crew member of the Pequod.

The commander of the whale boat is the charismatic, some would say despotic, Captain Ahab (William Hurt), an experienced seaman and whale hunter who lost his leg several years earlier in a struggle with the gigantic white sperm whale Moby Dick. Now he is obsessed with taking revenge on the legendary creature. Neither his long suffering wife (Gillian Anderson) nor his crew suspect the true extent of his obsessive thirst for vengeance. Only Starbuck (Ethan Hawke), the First Mate of the Pequod, a very religious and level headed man, fears that this journey will not be a regular whale catching expedition…

On deck, Ahab finally tells his crew what the real goal of their voyage is: the death of Moby Dick. Ishmael, who is now friends with the harpooner Queequeg, is fascinated by his captain’s charisma, willpower and determination. He casts Queequeg’s dark premonitions to the winds.

It airs 8:30pm Sunday May 8 and 15 on ABC1.