Anyone else watching this first season of "Underground"?

I didn't hear about it in time, so I got stuck tonight paying to watch the first episode on Amazon. But now I'm going to try to watch the rest on Comcast before these other episodes disappear.

It's gripping and multi-layered, with a lot of excellent actors.

If you already have Comcast, you might want to check this out before even more episodes disappear.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/underground-tv-review-873284

But even if Underground isn't fun, the Misha Green and Joe Pokaski-created series is both exhilarating and entertaining, taking a history lesson and making it something more contemporary, taking a painful chapter in American life and infusing it with populist genres.

Underground is a thriller, an adventure yarn, before it's a Brussels sprouts message drama. Perhaps that's why Underground may not find itself an Emmy contender, but why it ought to be able to attract an enthusiastic audience.

Actually, Underground is largely a prison-break drama, only the prison is a Georgia cotton plantation. Wrongly hauled in as a runaway, Noah (Aldis Hodge) gets his hands on a map to freedom, a coded map providing instructions to navigate to the North along the Underground Railroad. Escape is too much of a task for Noah to execute on his own, so he has to round up a team of fellow slaves, each with a particular expertise. Noah targets the likes of devoted teenage sidekick Henry (Renwick Scott), impossibly strong Zeke (Theodus Crane), gifted carpenter Sam (Johnny Ray Gill) and fiery preacher Moses (Mykelti Williamson), useful because he seems to be able to read. Complicating the escape plan are lovely house slave Rosalee (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), just beginning to catch Noah's eye, and scheming, scarred Cato (Alano Miller), who seems to be in the pocket of the masters.

Initially outside of the main escape plot is Northern attorney John Hawkes (Marc Blucas), already outspoken on civil rights, but suddenly ready to take a next step with the help of troubled wife Elizabeth (Jessica De Gouw). Further down South, we find August Pullman (Christopher Meloni), a farmer struggling to find his way as a single father.

SNIP