Last Kingdom, The

AD 866. Uhtred, the Northumbrian Ealdorman of Bebbanburg, is slain in battle with raiders and his son, also called, Uhtred, is captured by Danes. Uhtred's spirit amuses one of the warriors, Ragnar, who decides to keep him and raise him as a slave and servant. When Uhtred saves Ragnar's daughter Thyra from another Danish boy, Ragnar adopts him into his household and teaches him the Danish art of war.

A decade later, Ragnar is betrayed and murdered by an affronted rival. Uhtred and a servant, Brida, escape. Learning that his uncle has usurped his father's seat, Uhtred decides to seek refuge in Wessex to the south. With Northumbria and Mercia overrun by the Danes and East Anglia under attack, Wessex is now the last surviving free Saxon kingdom in England. There Uhtred gains service with the king's brother, Alfred. Alfred is a visionary who sees a single great nation called England rising from the ashes of the Saxon kingdoms and the Danish strongholds...a nation that will need a great, first king.

The Last Kingdom is a television adaptation of the novel series of the same name by Bernard Cornwell, Britain's foremost and most popular writer of historical fiction. Cornwell's work has been adapted to the screen before, most notably his Sharpe series (starring a then-unknown Sean Bean) about a fictional officer raised from the ranks during the height of the Napoleonic Wars. The Last Kingdom is an earthier, harsher series where life is cheaper but also arguably more passionate. The series may have been inspired by the success of Game of Thrones, like so many others, but The Last Kingdom differs from them in one key respect: it's very, very good.

The first season adapts the first two novels in the series, The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horsemen. The through-line of the season is Uhtred's attempt to find a home where he can be accepted. Among the Danes, his Northumbrian birth causes some to look down on him, but amongst the Saxons his Danish upbringing is viewed with suspicion. His refusal to convert to Christianity also makes life difficult at the court in Winchester. Several times he offends his patron, Alfred of Wessex (the later King Alfred the Great), and he earns the enmity of several powerful noblemen, such as Odda the Younger. He does take an English wife, which helps with his image, but this causes further problems when their different backgrounds, religions and outlooks clash.

The series is clever enough to paint Uhtred as a deeply flawed human being. He is young and for all of the harshness of his times and the need to grow up quickly he can still be hotheaded, precipitous and foolish. His brashness and bravery is instrumental in achieving several victories and surviving ambushes, but also works against him as he blunders through the intricacies of court politics. Fortunately, various allies such as the priest Beocca and the great Wessex warrior Leofric are on hand to help him survive.

The series succeeds because of excellent writing, which borrows from the books but also mixes in other historical ideas, and tremendous performances. Alexander Dreymon's surly performance as Uhtred kind of grates until you realise he's supposed to be surly and arrogant, and this lessens over the series as he learns (more or less) humility. David Dawson is also nothing less than exceptional as Alfred, the bookish and quiet younger brother of the king who acts as his spymaster and chief diplomat who then unexpectedly is given the throne and crown despite a lack of charisma or battlefield skills. The fact that he somehow overcomes these problems to become the only English king in twelve centuries to ever be acknowledged "The Great" at first seems implausible, but his growth and evolution over the eight episodes leaves you in no doubt that this is a great man, a statesman who prefers reasoned dialogue but is prepared to use force when necessary. Adrian Bower gives an excellent performance as Leofric, and Leofric and Uhtred's "bromance" gives rise to many excellent moments of humour and comradeship. Female characters are also not forgotten, with Emily Cox giving a convincing conflicted performance as Brida, Uhtred's first love who cannot abandon her Danish ties. Charlie Murphy is also excellent as Iseult, the "Shadow Queen" of Cornwall, and Amy Wren gives a dignified performance as Mildrith, Uhtred's highly reluctant bride. Eliza Butterworth also has a tough role as Queen Aelswith, who initially appears to be very one-note, but later nuance is introduced to the character in a convincing manner.

In fact, all of the performances are excellent, helped by the quality script and great production values. The show is clearly made on a much tighter budget than Game of Thrones - the eight episodes in this first season apparently cost considerably less than just two episodes of Thrones - but delivers some impressive sets, visuals and battle sequences anyway.

If there are any weaknesses it's that the show can be a tad confusing at times, especially in its failure to show the passage of time. It's not made clear, for example, that months pass between some of the episodes, leading to the appearance of the Danes making peace and then breaking it almost instantly. There's also an issue with foreshadowing given that Uhtred is established as primarily wanting to retake his homeland of Bebbanburg but this ambition is then put on the backburner for most of the season. If the next season adapts the third and fourth novels in the series (as seems likely), this storyline should return to prominence then.

The first season of The Last Kingdom (****½) has a bit of a slow start but then transforms into a highly compelling, enjoyable slice of historical drama. It is available in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) now and will be released in the USA (on DVD only, controversially) on 6 January.

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!

While I thoroughly enjoyed this series there are some weak spots which truly annoyed me because - well - it could have been much, much better. Please don't get me wrong as it is very good and far superior to most of the tripe that is on television these days but it could have been better. First, and sad to say, Alexander Dreymon really hasn't filled out his character as well as one would expect, especially given these excellent books the story is based on. In fact, I would say he was miscast as he just doesn't look the Viking type, much too pretty, and his portrayal of Uhtred just isn't course, hard, harsh enough. And, his costumes, as well as Emila Cox's, who plays Brida (excellently in my opinion as is Ian Hunt (of course!) and David Dawson) are too clean, too modern, too Hollywood. I think BBC should have looked to the 'Vikings' a bit more before shooting because they do have an wonderful script and story and director; it just could have been much, much better. So, those are my two annoyances: costumes and a bit of miscasting. The latter isn't all that serious and Dreymon does a fair job but when compared to the 'Vikings' which is almost perfect...well, it could have been much, much better but it's still very worthy entertainment.