Most can agree that there is a lack of serious fantasy media out there. I was surprised to see a show I had never heard about that was a high budget serious fantasy mini-series on Prime Video. Not only that but it featured big name actors like Orlando Bloom and an actress I feel is underrated iwth Cara Delevingne. A crime, drama, suspense story? Looking at the pictures only made me want to love this more. I might have just put my expectations way too high for this one, but I guess they were high expectations for Amazon too and they weren’t delivered.
My suspicion should’ve started when I had not heard anything about it, but then again sometimes shows slip through the mainstream and there are some hidden gems. I just like shows and movies most people don’t so it wasn’t a red flag. Since the first season didn’t set the world on fire and I’m guessing the budget was rather high they decided to cancel it after the second season. The good news is that they knew in advance and we got an ending, the bad news is that well it was clearly meant to go on for much longer so some things feel rushed.
So we’re set in a magical world and I like it, it’s more of a modern old mythological world or whwatever you might want t describe it as. The whole mystery is about solving who is attacking the mythical creatures who live outcast from society. The whole show leans too heavily on racism, clasism, immigration paralels in a mythical setting. I can’t say they do a great job at hiding it, it comes of as too preachy and not well done. It’s just too political driven and feels forced since the rest is not handled well.
The victorian steam punk world is indeed neat, the effects are really cool when they’re used. It’s really a great setting, it’s a shame that it’s just boring all around. I like mysteries but here it just didn’t work, it wasn’t sherlock holmes or a fantasy show. As I mentioend on paper it seemed like a great idea, but the arc wasn’t interesting enough to make it work. I hate to hate on it since when it gets things right it feels like it could be such a wonderful world that I’d love to explore.
Sadly those moments are too far and in betwee for me to care and even as an 18 episode series it drags. It’s medicore and coudlv’e been much more with it’s atmosphere. The idea in general of a more adult fantasy world is definitely worth exploring, I just hope it’s done with a decent enoughs cript by people who understand what the setting should be and what stories they can tell. I mean secret monster killings could’ve been fun and I love some segregation subplots, just write it correctly.
Cara Delevingne always seems to get roles where she is underutilized, which is a shame as she could’ve been a much bigger star had she been given the right roles in her career. Her as a fairy was an excellent role for her to do some insane fun stuff. I can think of a similar situation in her interestingly boring Valerian City of a thousand planets acting. Perhaps it’ll happen one day. Until then I’ll only watch the fairy parts of the Carnival Row show ever again.