Perse_phone

Seasons 1 and 2, even season 3, were great. Awesome even. Ragnar is an intriguing character; intelligent, curious as to what else is there, open to new ideas and new ways of life. He seems to always be one, two steps ahead, is mysterious, intense and sometimes quirky. I really loved his character in the first 3 seasons. Same with Lagertha, Raganr's one true love, a strong woman who deals with the betrayal of her husband and the loss of one child. She is strong-willed, strong in general, intelligent and can hold her water even around the best of warriors.

Really, the Viking world presented in this series is equally fascinating, beautiful and gruesome. You want to hate the characters for their brutality and cruelty, e.g. killing, no, slaughtering, harmless farmers, women and children instead of only warriors. Enjoying murdering innocent people, raiding whole cities and leaving behind a trail of destruction and death. On the other hand you grow to like them, suffer with them, root for them.

Vikings is an unique show that kept me on the edge of my seat. Great, captivating plot, intriguing and refreshingly different and flawed characters, great scenery and cinematography.

Up until season 4, that is.... Unfortunately, I might add.

Same as with so many other great shows, writers and directors seemed to have run out of good ideas, but tried to keep milking the cash cow. The lack of new ingenious storylines is "compensated" by inventing stupidly overdone, implausible, soap-y storylines. Adding drama for drama's sake. Destroying characterisations, letting characters act in ways that is in (utter) contradiction to their previous behaviour.

While Ragnar was my favourite character throughout season 1 to 3, he slowly but surely progressed to a pathetic, laughable, weak caricature of his once great self. The storyline became ridiculous, convoluted, and downright unbelievable at times. Ragnar's (sudden) downfall is simply not believable, the loss of his high-spirited, ambitious self and his sudden drug addiction facilitated by the introduction of the Chinese slave/princess just totally out-of-character. Lagertha's grab of power to become Queen, or at least the way she does it, is not thought-out, stupid and, if you ask me, not quite in character with her previous characterisation either.

Talk about beating a dead horse....

I can't help but be disappointed at how the makers of this show managed to mangle, destroy all their previous good work with the stupidity that follows in the newer seasons.

So my rating of this show is somewhat ambiguous... Season 1 and 2: 10 stars, Season 3: 8 stars, Season 4 and 5: (weak) 6 stars

Overall a very weak 8. A shame really, because seasons 1-3 were utterly amazing.