S1, E1: Young aristocrat, Edmund Talbot embarks on a long and hazardous sea journey from England to Australia on an ancient, decrepit 18th century wooden warship in this darkly comic film of William Golding’s prize winning novel. The ship is crammed with a disparate assortment of officers, sailors and passengers, as well as poor emigrants, who jostle in the crammed ship. The voyage is rough and shattering, relentless and tedious. Out of monotony and tedium there grows a need for distraction and mischief. Edmund is drawn to one of the few available women, the flirtatious Zenobia. In a bid to impress, he arrogantly champions the case of a ridiculed fellow passenger, Parson Colley, little knowing the dire consequences which will result when shame is a force deadlier than the sea itself.