Season 4 will be released April 26!
— Alan
Destiny is all!
Wyrd bið ful āræd
Something more for all the quarantine folks out there. Season 4 live.
But…but…I had a month to re-watch seasons 1-3 to prep!!
Oh. Yeah. That was in March.
Well, that’s the next two weeks sorted for TV then. :)
For some reason we have been stuck on season 1 and 2 here in Denmark for years now. I really would love to see the next seasons!
One interesting change is they now refer to themselves as “Saxons”. Alfred was to be “King of all Saxons”. Not one mention of England which in earlier seasons always seemed like pandering for the viewers.
Great first episode. I loved Uhtred’s introduction to his son and how that played out.
You can really feel how it’s sped up for time even without knowing the books. And I think it hurt in making characters more consistent/interesting, since they can’t focus on a single one (Alfred) as the driving force.
Still as enjoyable for me, though.
Still love the show but I think this is the weakest season. Brida’s morphing into a complete psychopath feels contrived at best (e.g. rage at Uhtred for letting her live; didn’t she just teach Cnut’s sons to take their own life if captured?) .
Finished S4 last night. Around Ep 7-8 it gets real contrived. A lot of silly standard TV sillyness.
SPOILERAGE
Uthred should have just claimed Brida as his battle spoil or something and fought those 10 welsh guys off. They were childhood friends/lovers.
Uthred not killing Haesten when he is in his grasp. Haesten not killing Uthred when he is in his grasp.
Winchester somehow falls super easily.
The mercia succession thing was a little weird. How exactly is Uthred an acceptable choice? Okay… whatever, war hero. Yeah sure STILL A LANDLESS, HEATHEN FOREIGNER.
Spoiler alert: The Danes end up beating the Anglo-Saxons, and then the Normans beat the Danes. Britons/Welsh continue to get the shite end of the stick. Then Margaret Thatcher comes around and ruins everything
And it takes a Scot to unite the island.
All I am going to say is that it was fun again, and it is actually rather refreshing to have a TV series season NOT end on a cliffhanger.
Finished the new season last night. I agree, this season was a lot of fun now that we are comfortable with the characters and the writers can play off of events from previous seasons to create moments of both humor and poignancy. I especially enjoyed Uthred’s interactions with his children and the way the show has depicted him slowly learning that not every situation is best solved with bold but reckless action. I LOL’d at Finan’s “I know that look, it means there is no plan!”
I think the writers, producers and especially the actors have done a great job of bringing these characters and settings to life in a way that keeps the story interesting and the viewers engaged without losing the qualities that made the books so good. Can’t wait for another season, but I would assume COVID-19 will delay production on that as it has so many shows.
That’s fine, they need time for Æthalstan to grow up and for Uhtred to not age at all, again.
I’m joking of course I love this show. Long live Uhtred. I can’t wait to see how he helps Henry V defeat France. That’s probably season 9?
I hear you man. It will be interesting in Season 7 when Uhtred sells out Harold to William at Hastings. “I am done with these worthless Saxons! 200 years and I STILL don’t have Bebbanburg back!”
Recently - and finally - got around to start watching this, as well as reading the books. I’m a long-time fan of Cornwell, but I’ve resisted getting into this series, as the years have made me really, really hate unfinished book series. With the last one supposedly coming out next month, though, I decided to start with both.
Books seem pretty much standard Cornwell fare so far. I’ve seen people compare Uthred unfavorably with Derfel Cardan, and so far I agree - Uthred in the first books so far is very much a cardboard hero, with very little resembling inner thought. Actually, so far I almost like the TV-show version better, because at least he manages to make the character appear to have some depth.
Watching the show more or less in parallel, the one thing that really sticks out to me is the main character’s age. I understand it swings the other way later in the show, but early in the show I’m finding it very distracting how old he is, simply because Uthred is so stupid. That stupidity is believable in the books, since he’s basically just a boy/young man, but it it just seems monumentally out of place when the same stupidity is being carried out by what is obviously a man who is pretty obviously in his 30s. For me at least, it is requiring a fair bit of suspension of disbelief - especially when everyone around him warns him about the consequences of his actions.
Still, I’m enjoying the show overall so far. I like how they depict the Saxons as being little different from the Vikings in practice (raiding the Britons, as the Danes raid them), and Alfred is a fantastic character as depicted here. The pace is a bit too breakneck compared to the books, but overall a way better show than Vikings, for me.
Finished season 1 of the show, and gotten to book 4/5? of the books.
I’m not overly impressed with the books, to be honest. They’re entertaining enough, but fall far short of the Warlord series, IMO. And they’re so very, very formulaic. Uhtred is basically just Sharpe the Saxon. Like Sharpe, he is Cornwell’s idea of the ultimate soldier. He serves a General/King who despises him and is never rewarded satisfactorily (and if he is, he quickly loses what he has so that he can be properly desperate for the next adventure). Every book ends in a big battle which is won thanks to Sharpe’s/Uhtred’s ingenuity/skill. And every book sees him dispose of/lose his previous woman and find a new woman to swoon over his manly charms. The big difference is I don’t recall Sharpe being especially stupid (other than his tendency to be led by the member between his legs), whereas Uhtred in the books is unreservedly stupid. Plot armor is inexorable, as he would say.
I’m actually finding myself enjoying the show more than the books. The show does have the problem that it moves at too frantic a pace - time passes at a crazy pace. But despite that, I find the show’s characters a lot more well-rounded and the interactions between them a lot better. Beoca in the show is a far better character than the one in the book - a character one can believe Uhtred would have some fondness for (and vice versa). Guhtrum is perfectly case, Even Aelswith has some depth to her character beyond being just the horrible wife of Alfred. And Alfred is brilliant.
Alfred is probably my biggest problem with the books, because he is completely implausible. The Anglo-Saxons were Christian, but at heart their cultural values were not very different from that of the Danes (it’s one of the reasons why the Danish invasion was so successful). A King had to be a warrior and reward his vassals well - and Alfred gained the throne because he had proven his courage and ability in battle. The character in the books is none of these things - he doesn’t lack courage, but he is made explicitly useless as a fighter and is shown a dithering coward in battle (the more to enhance Uhtred’s glory). And worst of all, he is niggardly with gifts, repeatedly refusing to reward his best warrior(s). A King such as the Alfred described in the books would not have survived even the first invasion of Wessex. Dawson in the show is a hugely superior Alfred. While still bookish in appearance, etc., he manages to imbue the character with an understated steel and ruthlessness that makes it apparent why men might follow him, is cunning (deftly outmaneuvering Uhtred and the Danes) and - at least in the first season - is shown as appropriate appreciative and generous to his Saxon/Danish warlord.
Will definitely continue watching the show. And I hope the books improve, though I’m dubious. For once, I’m thinking this is a series that might be better read spread out over a few years, because read back-to-back, as I’m currently doing, they’re rather repetitive.
Finished watching the four seasons of this show, and reading the accompanying books in parallel.
Apologies to any of you who like these books; despite my general liking for Cornwell, I think these are rather poor. I can forgive historical inaccuracies like the (IMO) unrealistic depictions of combat - how a shield wall functioned is a hotly disputed issue, and I can’t fault a writer too much for going with the Victor Davis Hanson-inspired orthodoxy. But I find it much more difficult to forgive Cornwell for not taking the bother to understand how early medieval society worked. More specifically, he has a hate-on for Christians which colors all his writings, but which tips over into farce in these books. Because Cornwell doesn’t (or refuses to) understand the place of Christianity in the period, the interaction of all the characters in the book with the Church ends up seeming ridiculous. In reality, many of the Bishops and Abbots of the time were powerful lords in their own right through the land the Church held in addition to having a powerful grip on the hearts and minds of the faithful. As such, they played an important (perhaps central) role in the “game of thrones”. The Norse who came to England, not being stupid, understood and exploited this for their own ends. It is very likely that Alfred et al were truly pious, but their gifting of the church was essentially just an extension of the generosity a good lord showed to all his vassals - basically politics.
When you add to this that Uhtred is generally an unsympathetic protagonist, and that every single other character in the books exist solely for Uhtred to hump (almost every female character), follow him (his band), vex him (everyone who doesn’t follow him), or get killed by him… ugh. The sole way in which this book series redeems itself, IMO, is that it has sparked a surprisingly good TV show.
The TV show has actual characters, with actual character arcs. I’ve already commented on Alfred, who is by far the standout character of the show. But the show does much better to give every character their little moment to shine. And the women in the show are all infinitely superior to the books. The character arcs of both Hild and Eadith are immensely improved by them not sleeping with Uhtred - and his character gains a lot from that as well. The chemistry between Finan and Eadith also gives that character an opportunity to appear as an individual beyond just being Uhtreds bro. Aelswith is actually a character in this show.
Book-Aethelflad annoys me the most. Imagine, taking a historical character of this caliber - one of very few female rulers of the middle ages - and then turning her into that: love interest (for no apparent reason), created “Queen” by Uhtred without having any say/input in the matter, and (like everyone else) constantly turning up in the nick of time to watch Uhtred save the day. The historical Aethelflad must have been a remarkable person, and while I don’t think the show does her full justice, the character in the TV show at least has agency; Uhtred proposes her for the throne, but she is the one doing the negotiation with the Witan, and she proves herself as a strong, independent ruler and warrior multiple times.
I honestly think that every change they’ve made from the books to TV has been a good one. They’ve had to cut some material, but it’s easy to see why they’ve made the choices they have, and in general they avoid most of the traps that the books fall into. About the only really bad thing I have to say about the show, IMO, is how they basically “forget” that Uhtred has a third child (though it’s actually par for the course compared to the books, were characters also just disappear from the narrative when they become inconvenient).
The depiction of the Norse is still too much “Heavy Metal Vikings” for my tastes; the whole idea that Norse hungered to die and go to Valhalla is absurd (if that was truly the case, a few burhs wouldn’t have stopped them - they’d rather be a good way to get to Valhalla, right?) - and their bloodthirstiness is … meh. In reality, they were settlers, pirates and slavers - and apart from being heathen, culturally very similar to the anglo-saxons (who similarly dabbled in raids and slavery when they had the opportunity). Slaves in particular, where such a lucrative business, that it would likely have been very rare for “Vikings” to engage in the type of mass-slaughter that TV likes to depict. While they’d of course kill those who resisted, they preferred to avoid fighting (they were there for profit - not blood), took captives where practicable (dead men cannot tell you where they’ve hidden their silver, monks and priests can be ransomed, and children and younger people can be sold as slaves). But not surprising that the show prefers not to dwell on that. It’s one of the few areas where the books have a more nuanced take.
Bottom-line, I think this is a fantastic show. Season 3 is probably the strongest, but all four seasons are really good. Looking forward to Season 5, and hope they find time to wrap it up properly - whether they do so at the end of next season (as the Uhtred actor seems to be hinting) or they push forward for an extra season.