In a period piece set almost exactly 500 years ago, 39-year-old Ferdinand Magellan has carefully deduced a theoretical travel hack to reach the so-called East Indies by going west, around the globe, rather than south and east around Africa’s southern tip. Disregarded by the king of his native Portugal, Ferd pitches Spain’s monarch in 1519 and secures a five-ship mission with “237 souls” under his command.
A final recruit is the rakish, newly locked up navigator Juan Sebastian Elcano, whose misadventures as a lovable scamp are tracked through the pilot as a counterpoint to Magellan’s. Internal conflicts, mutiny, illness, folly, and violent colonialism are sure to follow, as they embark.