Intelligent military intelligence, in fact.
The series has the merit of sticking quite closely to the known historical facts. It’s not as good as the book on which it’s based, Alexander Rose’s Washington’s Spies, which draws on close research and talks about more aspects of espionage in the American War of Independence than Turn. Even so, the TV series takes its structure from the record, so in broad lines and occasionally in detail, sticks to it with some degree of faith.
Jamie Bell as Abraham Woodhull, lead agent of the Culper Ring, in Turn |
It’s that degree of fidelity to the record that also makes Vikings watchable. Here the issue is less historical fact, since it’s not even known whether the central character, Ragnar Lothbrok, ever existed outside legend. Myth or history, the tales of Lothbrok at least provide a framework for the series, as the history of the Culper ring provides one for Turn. That somehow makes the stories told more plausible, and therefore makes it easier to suspend disbelief.
Ragnar with his first wife, the shieldmaiden Lagertha Travis Fimmel and Katheryn Winnick |
That being said, the series also puts into play a series of extraordinary characters who are a delight to follow: Ragnar himself has boldness and ingenuity that are not completely proof to failure (he has his share); Floki is almost as cunning as the god Loki his name conjures up, as well as wild to the point, occasionally, of lunacy; Ragnar’s first wife Lagertha is strong, courageous and straight; Athelstan is a monk captured by the Vikings in a raid on the monastery at Lindisfarne who finds himself sucked into their way of life (an early case of Stockholm syndrome, one might say, but these Vikings are from Norway not Sweden); even Ecbert King of Wessex is a well-painted study in deviousness, intellectualism and fascination with a past greatness (that of the Romans).
Gustaf Skarsgård as Floki in Vikings Fascinatingly wild, to the point of craziness |
As for Revenge, it was highly entertaining for the first few episodes. The backstory is that a man has been betrayed by his friends at the top end of business and framed for collusion with a terrorist outrage. Particularly bitter is that one of those who sold him was the woman he loved, and who apparently loved him as strongly.
The best part of two decades later his daughter Amanda is back in the Long Island Hamptons, haunt of these gilded individuals, under the assumed name Emily, ready to wreak her revenge. She has the means because an internet billionaire (Nolan, much the most entertaining character), owes his fortune to her father, and has given her half of it. In the first few episodes she uses her resources and her intelligence to start destroying her enemies in ways that are brilliantly ingenious and devilishly effective, but then alas the series starts to decline and, to a far worse degree than the other two, descends into pure soap.
Emily Van Camp as Emily and Gabriel Mann as Nolan in Revenge His is the only consistently entertaining, if not wholly believable, character |
Reasonable entertainment if you’ve nothing better to do but, believe me, by the end of season 1, you have to be able to find better things to do.
2 comments:
I seem to remember reading that there is very little (if any) contemporary evidence for the blood eagle execution, and that it was, in fact, the fruit of the imaginations of much later writers, post Christianisation. As such, I felt its use in the show was a little gratuitous, merely capitalising on a bit of "sexy" violence.
Thanks for pointing that out – I've checked it out and I think you're right. Sounds like the theme was gratuitously introduced in the literature of the time so, as you say, its use in the series was gratuitous too... Still not a bad series otherwise, though. I liked the fact that it showed Vikings as farmers as well as raiders – not something most films point out.
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