Carnival Row - Season 1 (2019)

Carnival Row, the latest big budget CGI laden fantasy adventure series from Amazon Prime Video that hopes to fill in the void created with the departure of Game of Thrones. Set in a fantasy world with warring nations, inhabited by humans and mythological creatures who are often treated as second class immigrants. Throw in some gruesome murders a plot involving a Jack the Ripper sort of killer on the loose, a variety of mythological creatures with special features and powers like flying, and regular flashes of nudity and sex, and one would imagine we have a series that would succeed in capturing the attention of most undiscerning viewers.

While Carnival Row does succeed in keeping the audience engaged, its set of characters and storyline is no where near the complexity and intrigue of Game of Thrones. The central romance between our hero the human detective Philo (played by Orlando Bloom) and Vignette who is a fae (a fairy like creature) (played by Cara Delevingne), forms the core of the series. Their background romance provides material for the entire episode 3 dedicated to its story which was arguably the season's best episode. That episode was focused and very well directed giving it an almost mini epic movie feel. How I wished the entire series was as riveting. In fact the first two episodes were not very strong, and the thought of giving up on the series did cross my mind. That episode 3 made me change my mind and gave me a reason to binge through the remaining episodes. Unfortunately none of the remaining  episodes came close to what I had hoped for, being bogged down by too many characters, and what felt again like an attempt to make some sort of political statement on discrimination and the social problems associated with an overflow of immigrants. I thought the series would have felt more focused had it stuck to the romantic element, and the surrounding plot involving the gruesome murders with the political power play in the background.

The overall production values was very good with a majestic soundtrack and elaborate sets create a fantasy world of the fictional town of Burgue. The flying effects of the fairies were also impressive and very realistically rendered. Finally, it was good to see Orlando Bloom acting again with a meaty lead role. Cara Delevingne was also effective as the female lead. I remember Cara fondly in her cinema outing Luc Besson's underated si-fi epic Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and its good to see her again here.

All in all, Carnival Row has enough to hold the audience attention to sit through all 8 episodes, but only just barely. I for one, will hope Season 2 steps up on its game as this series has potential to be much better, and possibly even great, given the rich tapestry it has woven.