I saw the trailer to this series in one of the cable TV few weeks ago and finally gave it a go. It immediately intrigued me with the unusual looking creatures and the British classical period costumes plus the two well known names as the main leads. So let us get on with the series.
Brief Story Line
Set in the Victorian age fantasy world, a police detective in Republic of Burgue named Rycroft Philostrate aka Philo (Orlando Bloom - The Hobbits trilogy, Unlocked etc) had to solve a difficult case about the killing of a fae creature. As creatures were considered the lower end of society, most police did not care about the case. During his investigations, Philo met with a street performer named Millworthy (Simon McBurney - The Conjuring 2 etc) who would later provide some insights to him.
Meanwhile a spirited Fae named Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevingne - Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Suicide Squad etc) who just escaped from a war-hit country arrived at Burgue and was forced to work as a maid in the house owned by Ezra Spurnrose (Andrew Gower) and his sister Imogen (Tamzin Merchant - Pride and Prejudice, The Tudors TV series etc). They were having their own problem and had to endure the arrival or their new neighbor, a wealthy disrespected Faun creature named Agreus (David Gyazi). Vignette also met with her old friend Tourmaline (Karla Crome - Murder etc) who was working as prostitute in Carnival Row.
In Burgue itself, the chancellor Absalom Breakspear (Jared Harris - Lincoln, Chernobyl mini series etc) was having to deal with disapproval of the people on the rising of creatures entering the country. He also had personal matter to deal with that involved his wife Piety (Indira Varma - Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, Close etc) and their son Jonah (Arty Froushan).
So what would happen to the lives of all those people? Find them all in this fantasy series.
End of Brief Story Line
Well as you could see in my brief story line above, the people involved in here were quite a lot. There were also some more names who had recurring appearances but I did not put them as that would be too many. To be honest, when I read the very brief synopsis available online, it seemed to have a simple enough story about a person who had to cooperate with a fae creature to solve the mystery of the murder. Only when I started to watch the show that I found out there were a lot more stories than the murder mystery solving.
The series was also filled with the political turmoil (and power struggle) in the country as well as the fight for equality of status among the people. Hence the story was more complex than I predicted based on that synopsis alone. In addition, there were some heavy drama with love story as well. So for me it was quite a complete package series where you got to see various genres in one. Which was why if you look in few websites, it was categorized as fantasy, neo noir, politics, crime, drama even steampunk.
Now I do not really mind if there was a bit of drama here and there but personally I felt that the series seemed to be having too much things on their plate. It made me unclear what the main focus of the series was, whether it was a murder mystery with the 2 main stars as the lead characters or it was actually a story about the city with various characters in it. From the 8 episodes of first season, I tend to believe that the latter was what the writers tried to do. However, to me personally it made the synopsis a bit misleading as it gave the impression of more mystery kind of series rather than drama. And because of this unexpected story development, it was quite a challenge for me to be kept interested especially during the early part. I was finally getting really excited when I reached 6th episode as every sub plot seemed to be fully developed, plus the surprising twist after twist from then till the end.
Ever since that episode, I could not stop watching it until the season finale, which to me was a wonderful & amazing one. It perfectly set up a very intriguing second season (yes the series had been renewed by Amazon though it was unclear when it would be released). With quite a lot of drama in this first season, the mystery solving seemed to be lacking the focus, that was until the episode I mentioned. Oh and to my surprise, there were quite a number of love making scenes which could make the more conservative audience blush as they were shown quite explicitly.
For a series that had quite a lot of characters as series regular, funnily enough it was not that difficult to keep track as most of them had their own complicated matters to resolve. My favorite characters here obviously would be the 2 lead stars Orlando Bloom as the detective with complicated background and full of dilemmas plus Cara Delevingne who fit perfectly as the idealistic fae in a world where her kind was looked down. I also like the character of Argeus (nicely played by David Gyazi) and also Jared Harris plus Indira Varma's characters. Oh there were other factors that made this series enjoyable, which was the cinematography and the settings + costumes (they were done professionally and wonderfully), with excellent make up effects that brought the creatures to life.
Overall this might not have been a really entertaining series for me at first due to different expectation, but as the story continued and getting familiar with all the cast plus once I reached the 6th episode, I found myself enjoying it a lot. So if you are looking for a fantasy series which not only focused on the murder mystery solving but also political & social aspects, then you might find this one enjoyable. But if you prefer a full fantasy series without the hassle of other areas, this might not be really fulfilling. I myself would have preferred it if it was the latter scenario (or at least a change in the synopsis to avoid misleading and different expectation).
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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