The Last Kingdom: Season One [DVD]

One of my favorite series and hated to see it end. Good story and show of how honorable Utrid (not sure on spelling). He is absolutely amazing.

I made an impulse purchase of the entire season of this show based on the trailer, my love of the time period and my fondness for BBC America. I'll preface this by saying that I haven't read any of the historical fiction books in the Saxon Tales series by Bernard Cornwell, so this is a layman's opinion of episode 1.The Last Kingdom tells the tale of young Uhtred of Bebbanburg, heir to a Saxon kingdom, and his attempt to reclaim his title after the violent death of pretty much everyone he cares about in episode 1. This is visceral and primal fare for BBC America but it never approaches the hedonistic depths that A Game of Thrones descends into for HBO. Expect some coarse language with a few adult themes, and if dropping prisoners from a 25 ft ceiling to the floor is deemed inappropriate in your home for some reason, then you might want to put the kids to bed early.I enjoyed the gritty look of the sets and characters, and the fact that the viking ships were actually made of wood and not from bits and bytes at Weta Workshop or ILM was greatly appreciated. Well done. The costumes, makeup and sets are all well crafted for a BBC production competing against the bloated budgets of their online studio competitors.I confess that I watch too much BBC, but as a yank who has visited the UK numerous times, I've become pretty good at understanding different British dialects. However, sometimes when the action is too loud, or the actors don't enunciate, or the actors whisper and mumble while the action is too loud... well, I can't understand a damn thing. That's why I used closed captioning for some parts of episode 1. It's a bit distracting, but the Fire TV let's you pick a small point size which isn't too obtrusive, and makes some scenes much more comprehensible. For instance, in one scene without CC my wife asked me "What did he just say?" to which I replied "Oh, I think Ravenger just told Ootrip don't ever fry wheat with Bubba." For some reason this didn't make sense to my wife, so we turned on CC to discover that Ravn told Uhtred never to fight with Ubba. It's a subtle translation difference, but if you simply must follow along with the plot, CC can come in handy.Thankfully, there are still plenty of interesting characters for the show to kill off, including a murdering power mad uncle, Uhtred's, um, common law wife, the perpetually groped and abused Thyra, and finally Sven the cyclops... who appears to be impersonating Kirk Douglas's character Einar from the 1958 movie The Vikings, but not because Tony Curtis released his eye gouging hawk... oops, I digress. You'll have to watch for yourself.This promises to be an epic adventure with solid performances and a gripping script brimming with characters you'll care about.I can't wait to see who dies next week!

Having read all of the Last Kingdom series books more than once and being a devoted and loyal fan of Bernard Cornwell's writings, I will admit that I was somewhat concerned about how this series would be presented on the small screen. I worried that I would be massively disappointed by some slaughtering of the story. Fortunately, my worries were for nothing! I am highly impressed with how it's playing out so far! I keep hearing this show being compared to GOT and how some are under the mistaken or misguided impression that this should live up to GOT expectations. This is not GOT, this is not fantasy and should not be compared as such. This show is historical fiction/drama but by no means should it be considered and some sort of fantasy genre. Nor is it all about graphic sex for ratings. This is a dirty, grim, and often harsh look at history and life during the time of Alfred's reign and the Great Heathen armies conquest of England. I have read some reviews in which the viewers complained that it felt dated and low budget as compared to some other shows. I completely disagree in that regard. As I mentioned, what it is, is a more realistic presentation showing the conditions that many- most people lived in during that time.Are there some historical inaccuracies, of course there are- nothing is perfect and I don't expect 100% historical authenticity or accuracy... if I did, I would refrain from television or fiction at all and read only text books about the events- and even then, I would never get exact because even text books make mistakes. I am far more interested in the story that is being told here and that story is keeping me interested and waiting for each new episode. If you have read the books, yes there are deviations and changes so I suppose that if you are book purist, this may cause you some frustration, annoyance or irritation. I appreciate the changes that have been made to make this story work in the compacted visual version that the creators are limited to. As far as I can see, the story is still falling into place and following a similar path as the books did, just getting there in a slightly different manner.