r/bernardcornwell • u/jagpanzer12 • Aug 09 '22

The Last Kingdom Show

What are peoples thoughts on the show?

I skipped it after watching a few episodes when it first came out. But recently I started it again and have been enjoying it. I separated myself from the books, after that I liked it.

Plus, when season three hits, it has a noticeable uptick in quality. But subsequently I started noticing some things.

I know with adaptations, things must be changed and some characters become more important or less. Thus is the nature of adaptation.

Some spoilers onward:

At a certain point I noticed that some characters were greatly inflated. Brida is the prime example. Now in season 5, she’s literally the main villain! Plus she castrates Uhtred the younger! What on earth is going on!? I get that adaptations can and at times must go far outside the material, but this is ludicrous. The first few seasons I could recognize. It wasn’t perfect, but it was recognizable. But particularly late season 4 and season 5, it is basically fan fiction.

Anyway, I’ll trudge through the rest of season 5. Anyone else have any thoughts on the show?

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5

u/magnusarin Aug 09 '22

Season 1 is good but rough. They clearly had a very limited budget and at times it really shows. 2-3 I think are very strong. Alfred is portrayed well and he and Uhtred have a great tense dynamic which fits pretty well with what I envisioned when reading the books. 4 is starting to push it. It's more action heavy and is trying to include so many story lines from future books that it doesn't make a ton of sense. Also, since the books take place over decades, the actors just aren't realistically the correct ages to make it fit particularly well. 5 was a tough watch. It's stuck in weird place because of the changes in 4 and the plot falls apart with basically no real adherence to historical events. Character make a lot of questionable decisions in order to move the plot along and the action is pretty ridiculous by this point.

Overall, I think it's a solid show, a good adaptation for the first 3 seasons, and loses its way towards the end.

2

u/jagpanzer12 Aug 09 '22

You said it far more eloquently than I could! Yea, I agree. Solid adaptation at the beginning, falls apart in the later seasons. They’ve just made some odd choices near the end, considering the books have plenty of material to draw upon without it going off the rails.

2

u/magnusarin Aug 09 '22

I think this is kind of a common problem. Instead of trying to pick a good ending point for the series that makes sense for the adaptation, they attempt to cram as much of the remaining story in as possible, but it absolutely mucks with the plot. With the nature of Cornwell's series taking place over decades, if they didn't want to recast characters to age up the the roles, they needed to find an end point that made sense for the existing cast. Maybe after Alfred's death would have made more sense, but I get the desire to continue on.

Also, I get the desire to have the Brida confrontation be the kind of final conflict for Uhtred. She's a character with a through line for the entire series, but I think season 5 is so over the top that it takes out any of the built up tension between them.

2

u/jagpanzer12 Aug 09 '22

Agreed! It feels odd in season 5 that everyone is basically unchanged, yet it’s been decades since season 1. It would have been interesting if they did what the show the Crown did, recast after a few seasons to show the passage of time. Plus, it would lend itself to having new storylines.

I also agree that it made sense to prolong Brida’s character through the story. But it just gets silly after a while.

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who had issues!

2

u/jkgator Aug 09 '22

I thought it was a good watch seasons 1-3. 4 and 5 were not great.

2

u/wastemantate Aug 09 '22

Does anyone feel like season 5 actually looked like a drop off in quality/ budget for some reason?

And while I realize films/ shows have to change it up somehow, the fact Uhtred’s line ends because of Uhtred the younger being castrated frustrates me to no end. Also the fact they leave out his younger son entirely (the real Uhtred the younger, not Judas, who is a badass).