L'Écuyer du Roi

Letter to the King has been chosen to be the all-time most popular Dutch children book in the Netherlands. This is quite a remarkable feat, because youth literature in the Netherlands is of high quality.

The book is a coming-of-age story. A young man is asked to fulfill a dangerous quest on the night he is supposed to meditate on the duties of knighthood and should not speak for that knight, praying in a chapel and has to pray.

Then comes the knock on the door and the key-sentence: 'in the name of God, help me.' And Tiuri has to decide at app. page 2 what he has to do, give up his dream of becoming a knight by breaking his vows, or stay put.

What this series has to do with the book is a riddle.

The idea of suggesting that this series has anything to do with the book is a pure disgrace.

But hey, we're only in it for the money now aren't we.

Very pretty.

Everyone is scripted to be an idiot.

Really childish.

Could have been really good,

The sole reason for giving 2 stars is Gijs Blom and his hair.

I was really enjoying the series until about episode 5. The story, characters, and visual backdrop really draw you in, and I think most of the young actors gave fine performances in spite of what some other reviews are saying. The problem, though, is that the writers decided to throw in a bunch of plot twists in the 3rd act. The attempted twists do not work and send their story straight to hell, adding it to the growing list of failed plot subversions which now include the likes of Last Jedi and Game of Thrones, S8. Screen writers need to get off the plot twist bandwagon that they all seem to have jumped on since Game of Thrones made it a thing. Somebody needs to remind them that most of the time, plot twists do not work and are a dangerous thing to attempt, because if done poorly they merely undermine the good elements that a story has built up.

While this show is directed at a young audience and one wouldn't expect anything deep or serious, there is really no excuse for the boring and predictable plot. The villain is a cardboard cutout spouting generic villain lines and has a nonsensical stupid plot. The main character is a boring cliche, some of the side characters are good but not enough to add anything unique. The locations used are great and the show is somewhat visually pretty, but it all feels wasted. Also, I never thought I'd complain about fantastical elements as fantasy is my favorite genre, but the magic felt like a tedious add on to the story which would have worked much better without, as I'm given to understand that was the case in the book so straying from the source material was a mistake here.