King & Conqueror

I so wanted this to be great but immediately you can tell its been knocked together on a budget.

The locations are unconvincing. Scenery is non existent. Journeys that would take days or weeks are made in what appears 10 minutes.

Heavy with explication because its so poorly written nobody can tell who's who and what the plot is until episode 3 The acting is hammy and bordering on Horrible Histories. Juliet Stevenson thinks she's in Game of Thrones.

King Edward is a cartoon character and far from the real personality.

William has no charisma whatsoever and the Godwin's dialect is an anachronistic 2020's Estuary English.

This should have been the quality of Wolf Hall or the Hollow Crown.

Its more like Carry on in Normandy.

I just watched the first episode and it is a solid start. We'll see how historically accurate it is as it moves along.

The cast is very good and the two main protagonists, as it moves forward, will be Duke William of Normandy (Coster-Waldau) and Harold, son of Godwin Earl of Wessex (Edward Norton) and the two characters are shaping up nicely.

The costumes and settings look good, too.

Having watched the first episode, I was very distracted with the cast selection. Most of the characters do just not seem to fit. Maybe it will improve as the series progresses, but I will await the TV airings. A shame as it's obvious a lot of work has gone into the series. Good sets and costumes. For me it just doesn't work.

If you want to watch a no strings attached action film based on medieval violence then this would be the sort of thing that you could watch. It has all the swords and arrows that you could ever want and plenty of battle action, added to some basic political intrigue it will have you watching wanting more. If you have any history knowledge that is beyond the basic do not watch this as all you would be doing is screaming at the screen "that didn't happen", or "that couldn't have happened." In 9 out of the 10 times you'll be right. This just feels like the Americans have again changed English history to make it more interesting for the Game of Thrones market. Fair enough as that's a great market to exploit, but a message at the start to say that this although uses people from history has no historical merit would have been nice.

Was really hoping this was going to be good.

You have so much material to work with - without question one of the most interesting stories in all history, yet alone English history. I understand it's a TV show but there really is no justifiable reason to make up nonsense that didn't happen - the reality is actually a much more interesting story.

I could only stomach the first half an hour, but everyone (in particular Harold Godwinson and Godwyn) are very badly cast, and massive liberties have already being taken with respect to what we know did/did not happen for no reason whatsoever. Who is the target audience here? Its just so god damn annoying to wait for this show and to immediately realize that they've completely ruined it right from the start.