Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands

As a complete fantasy addict who is normally very forgiving, and a lover of early history, I personally had high hopes, but this show is a huge disappointment. It is far inferior to modern series like the Vikings, Last Kingdom and Game of Thrones.

There is nothing wrong with a modern telling of an ancient story for a young audience today. To fill out and even creatively adapt the epic for a 21st century audience would be good if it was done well. This wretched mixed up travesty abuses and soils the name of one of the the original and greatest works in the English literature. It has very little to do with the original Anglo-Saxon epic of Beowulf, rather it is a badly written 21st century quasi-medieval fantasy that steals a few names from the original and begins to tell the audience a utterly different inferior story.

Good grief the whole program is a bad with below average direction, production and acting. The whole cast where wholly unconvincing and Beowulf himself was a very poor version of the super top notch warrior of English literature. And what the hell have they done with Heriot, the great hall was some weird Mayan, tolkienesque, 21st century fantasy temple hybrid, were warriors did not have banquets but mingled at cocktail parties. So many of the costumes and sets appeared to be either bad or borrowed from other fantasy productions.

I just saw the first episode and I'd like to see the next one. It's not a bad show but its neither great.

First let me point out few bad things I've noticed in the episode.

1. Lots of similarities/resemblance with Game of Thrones -We can notice that even by watching the intro for Beowulf TV show, also the Wall, there is "bad" Queen and spoiled brat Prince who is Queen's son. Also we got here an adviser who "knows" almost everything and always remains in the shadow like Lord Varys, and etc etc.

2. Bad CGI and there is lots of CGI we can all agree on that. -I understand that the environment of the story requires CGI but hopefully they'll get better, they must get better if they wanna make great show.

3. Long pauses between scenes. -Its like they want to show us the stage they have set for the show over and over, and whenever a new scene is coming, the camera goes all over the scene mostly without people and talking.

Okay, these are the main bad things I've noticed in the first episode. Now the good things.

1. The writing! -Oh boy, I loved it! The dialogue isn't what you hear in almost 90% of the show, its so realistic, honest, logical and so on and on. I wish there was more of this!

2. The story. -I know nothing about Beowulf, except the movie, but I'm interested in learning more by watching this show. This show might just do that if its done the right way! It has it's potential, but they must be careful because in my opinion, I'd hate to see Beowulf as medieval detective who solves murders, catches bad guys and stuff like that which is so casual in todays shows.

3. The actors -This is not fashion show where we get to see every single actor to be like a model, which is perfect! They are all likable to look at and they blend in very well. The actors are rather good and they add huge amount of realism to the show.

Well to keep it short, an overall opinion: -I liked what I saw and I'm interested in seeing more with a bit of a hope that they'll try and keep trying to do better and better job!

This series isn't great. This series is very entertaining. I wish the series creators hadn't gone for the easy option of calling it Beowulf because that's what niggles people like me. For heavens sake think up a new norse name to call your hero and eliminate all the pedant complaints, this is just asking for bad reviews. My son, who has actually been made to read the saga of Beowulf at school tells me that Beowulf died. I don't know if that's actually true but if he believes it then many others of his age will also. My son is extremely scornful of the series without even bothering to watch any of it.My son is probably the target audience of this series. Nuff said.

When i saw Beowulf in the TV listings, i immediately hoped that a decent drama had been created, based on the historical poem, and produced to a high standard. I was quickly disappointed.

Although the story is very loosely based on the old English poem about a Scandinavian monster terrorising a Danish King, that is pretty much where the similarity ends. You are very quickly introduced to CGI trolls working a in human village in place of oxen, turning a wheel. It is at this point you realise the slant is farther toward the fantasy realm drama than the historical realm drama.

In terms of the characters, they are rather cliché and lacked depth. The sets are OK in parts and in others look like cheap fantasy set pieces. They also seem inconsistent as great halls with cast relief gates in bronze are hardly likely to be the product of a 20 person village. The grandeur of some of the buildings is far out of whack with the population size and any semblance of industry or agriculture.

Casting, and cast diversity - within minutes you are introduced to characters that are obviously Indian Asian, and also Black (African). There are quite a few characters with diverse ethnic origins. Again, if you were expecting something akin to the fantastic 'Vikings' or even the Stars productions like 'Spartacus' forget it.There is no attempt at historical, cultural, or geographic realism as a backdrop for this show.

A Black male actor appears in Arabic dress who speaks with a solid south England accent. I totally get diversity in a modern TV show about modern society, or even in culturally mixed locations like Rome, but in something apparently 'based' on an AngloScandinavian tale/poem it hardly fits. This reality works in both directions, if i were watching a show about the rise of a chieftain in Africa in 300BC, then i'd hardly expect to see the cast featuring heavily with Chinese and white Australian sounding actors (it just drags you out of the show). It's another element that constantly reminds the viewer that there is no historic setting for this and it is little more than a uber low budget Lord of The Rings rip off merged merged with the title Beowulf.

If this show were targeting adults, one has to ask, who watches stuff like this? The script, acting, story seems quite immature. It does feel more like a teen show, however it is on UK TV in a late evening slot. For this reason i suspect it won't pick up the viewers, and won't make a second season.

I hoped for so much something as great as 'Vikings,' or 'The Last Kingdom,'but it felt like an episode of Doctor Who (i.e. more for kids and sets that look like sets). Then after a lot of irritated huffing and puffing on my part, I realised it has been made for a young audience who would get the most from this ambitious reworking and I expect these it would delight. I can't rate this properly as it wasn't made for me, but if I look back to my earlier tastes in life, am sure I'd have revelled in this show. The time slot should have given me a clue that it wasn't intended for me and all the gripes I had are answered by it being reworked for it's target audience which doesn't include me. From childhood to 24 I expect I'd have loved this version of Beowulf. I hope enough of it's target audience find it.