My viewing this past week consisted of Tempalr knights - both in TV show & movie.
on DVD.
Season 1In a thread that asked what shows we gave up on after one episode, I'd mentioned this series - as I'd watched the first episode when it originally aired on TV here quite a while back. I remember being bored by it. However, because this show seemed to be hated on by quite a lot of people for its 'inaccuracies' regarding history, and because I rarely care about such things since pretty much no historical show or movie outside of documentaries is ever 100% 'accurate', I thought maybe I'd been too harsh with judging it just based on its first episode. Anyway, both seasons were available as a DVD boxset for a good cheap price and I thought I might as well give the show another shot (also, learning that an actress I'd come to enjoy in another show I recently watched would be appearing in Season of
this show gave me extra incentive). Watching the first episode again was almost like watching it anew, since I'd forgotten a lot of what happened.
As it went on, though, I started recalling bits and pieces from my first viewing such as there being a farm boy (Parsifal) who pretty much signed his fiancée's (Marie) death warrant when they discussed their child/what they'd name it and they seemed too happy and carefree as he left to deliver a message to the Knights Templar. This was after they'd seen a Templar (Godfrey - whose name is mentioned SO often throughout the season you'll get sick of hearing it despite the fact that we spend so little time with his actual character) die at the hands of bad guys (who he quickly dispatched most of...but not before being fatally injured). Parisfal took Godfrey's sword, delivered it, then brought the other Templars back to his farm only to find Marie dead with a crossbow bolt through her throat. I remembered this part from my first viewing and I also remembered that Parsifal becomes very single-minded about getting revenge against the one who killed her. As the episodes went on, it became clear that this was his *only* purpose on the show, as he didn't listen to the Templars who told him not to rush into things and he just made stupid mistake after stupid mistake. In the end, he *did* get revenge against Marie's killer (in a satisfying, albeit gruesome way), but then as he learned of betrayers amongst the Knights Templar, he trusted the wrong one and paid the price by unexpected getting his fool self killed. It was quite clear to me that the people in charge of this show really didn't know what to do with his character once he'd fulfilled his promise to avenge Marie and was promptly dropped him (which was somewhat surprising to me, as usually this type of character would gradually be developed to the point where they actually learned from their mistakes, became useful and eventually turned into leader material - not so here. I imagine they realised both the character and actor weren't 'clicking' with the rest so so gave him the ol' heave-ho). Probably just as well he, since his character seemed pretty worthless.
The show's lead, Landry, is played by an actor named Tom Cullen - which sounded familiar to me, but whatever things I'd seen him in...he didn't leave any sort of impression. It was the same case here. Most of the time he seemed to not really do much performance-wise, then when he *did* it was a lot of OTT yelling or overdone emotion. His character was kind of hard to like, since despite taking his vows as a Templar, he broke most of them including sleeping with the wife of the KING (who he was supposedly a loyal friend of). He fought with his fellow Templars, judging them for anything he perceived they'd done 'wrong', but at the same time *he* was doing wrong things all over the place, and although he got called out on it...that didn't really make up for his hypocrisy. Most of the season his dialogue could be summed up as "blah blah blah Grail blah blah" and, honestly, he couldn't even be trusted with
hanging onto the Grail since he kept LOSING it/allowing it to be stolen numerous times. As series leads go, he was rather underwhelming. A much better character was that of one of his fellow Templars, Tancrede (played by an actor named Simon Merrells, who reminded me of the actor who played Bronn in
Game of Thrones for some reason). He seemed to be everything Landry
wasn't, and even though he made some questionable decisions, he still remained likeable (at least moreso than Landry, anyway). The only other Templar whose name I could even remember/bother to learn was Gawain, who in the opening battle to the series we saw save Landry and get an arrow in the leg for his trouble, causing him to have a gimpy leg...which he then proceeded to bitch about for THE REST OF THE SEASON. On the one hand, I could understand him being ticked off at Landry who opposed him on many a things and it feeling like he was ungrateful for the save, but on the other hand Gawain just came across as a whiny bitch (though he *did* get a revenge of sorts against Landry at one point, going all
Misery on his leg with a hammer. The two of them faced off during at battle at the end of the season, but sadly Gawain managed to get away to annoy another day). This was another reason Tancrede came out looking the best of all the Templars.
Speaking of bitching, I know people complained about everything in this show from the acting, to the 'historical inaccuracies' to the CGI (I actually had no problem with that when it was featured. Unlike some, I haven't become spoiled when it comes to judging TV series CGI. I know most shows only have a limited budget, so I'm not expecting movie-quality effects from most TV series. I thought it was fine). In a weird coincidence, an actor who I'd seen in two shows I'd watched recently (the
Upstairs Downstairs revival and
The Frankenstein Chronicles) by the name of Ed Stoppard appeared in this series as King Philip (it's not like I was purposely watching shows with him in them, it just worked out that way), who seemed decent enough for most of the season but then once he found out about his wife, Queen Joan, cheating on him with his supposed friend, Landry, it was like he flipped a switch all of a sudden and decided "Okay, time to be evil!" as he
really didn't take too kindly to this revelation that not only was someone he trusted boffing his wife (which rubbed even more salt into the wound due to the fact that she hadn't been in hubby's bed for at least two years or so), but she was also carrying Landry's child. By the last few episodes, Kingy was torturing the Queen's handmaiden in front of her, being an abusive husband and then after pummeling Landry's face for a good long while in the final as his wife gave birth, he stabbed her in her side with a sword when she begged him to allow Landry to live (though he rightly pointed out she was using the love he once felt for her to save the life of her current love, Landry - which was pretty rich). Suffice to say, he went full-blown villain by the end.
As for the Queen, I found her rather plain/boring for the majority of the season...though I did like her with her handmaiden (played by an actress I recalled from the 2015
Poldark remake - and considering that was quite a while ago and she didn't play an overly 'big' role, it just shows that sometimes actors *can* leave an impression no matter how small their role is. Take note, Tom Cullen!), Sophie, whose days I knew were most likely numbered since she was helping the Queen to get away from her now supremely a-holey husband, the King. Unfortunately, the Queen's bratty, conniving daughter spied on her when she was discussing her escape plan with her handmaiden (THIS is why you check your doors/walls don't have peepholes!) and she reported back to her father, outing them. The actress playing Princess Isabella in this first season, Sabrina Bartlett, was another one I knew from the 2015 version of
Poldark. She played a thoroughly unlikeable character with seemingly no redeeming qualities in the first season of that show and I was pretty relieved when she finally met her demise. I've seen her in some other things too, I think, and while I don't necessarily *hate* her...there's something about her that makes most of the characters she plays unlikeable (even when they're not
supposed to be unlikeable). I think the best part she's played was that blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in
Game of Thrones. I'll admit that I found her character here somewhat interesting when she conspired with her father's scheming counsellor/lawyer, De Nogaret, to do away with her soon-to-be-hubby in an elaborate ruse involving her seemingly being kidnapped in a carriage, her doomed hubby-to-be coming to her 'rescue', only for him to realise she was setting him up as she leapt from the carriage and then it exploded due to being doused with 'Greek fire'. She then was absent from some episodes, her mother was given an ultimatum by her cousin where she was to either turn over Isabella (in return for her murdering her cousin's son) or she would get stabbed in the baby. The Queen had a counter-offer/third option - namely offing her cousin to keep her daughter safe (though it seemed like her cousin was reconsidering being so harsh towards her) and in return her beeyotch of an offspring ratted her out to the King.
De Nogaret was the typical weaselly type of character, and I was glad that his true self was revealed mid-season, but naturally he escaped death and was soon back in the King's good graces, so it felt rather pointless. Still, he's one of the more interesting characters (though there was a VERY unpleasant-to-watch dead horse that had been beheaded in an episode and I'm not sure how much of a role he played in that, but even if he
didn't...I still can't say I 'like' his character, but at least he's not as boring as some of the others). Landry's mother who was revealed towards the end of the season proved pretty handy with a crossbow, so she actually felt less boring than Landry did. There were a couple of female Saracen ninjas (or something similar) who got phased out after playing significant parts, a Pope (played by the Mr. Carson actor from
Downton Abbey) who wasn't very Pope-like (what with the murdering of Godfrey, which it was revealed he was behind), TONS of weirdly purple-ish blood splashed over all the Templars during their fight scenes (they kind of went overboard with it) and some really dodgy dialogue Landry spouted in the season final as he held the dying Queen, who he tried to save by having her drink from the Grail (which had been recovered for the umpteenth time) only for it fail to heal her and then he petulantly threw it against a tree, shattering it (THANKS A BUNCH, LANDRY! All those Templars who died to protect/retrieve it were, I'm sure, THRILLED with that). Was the Grail real or fake and did it magically heal Joan's child - which managed to be cut out of her corpse miraculously still
alive - or was it just luck? Who knows! And some random dude found a teeny-weeny message rolled up in a metal cylinder inside the bottom of the broken Grail, read it...then swallowed it, CONTAINER AND ALL (dude, just swallow the
paper. It'd go down much easier...and certainly be less uncomfortable when it eventually comes back out).
Season 2Once I finished Season 1, I went straight onto Season 2. I'd read about some recastings and other changes made well before watching, but even if I
hadn't, it would've been immediately evident from the opening battle in the first episode of this second season where it's Templars vs. the King's men and Landry (now with a thicker beard) vs. King Philip (with new facial hair of his own). It also soon became obvious this was a dream sequence when the King bested Landry (I figured if this weren't a dream, then it made Landry look like a pretty lame fighter). Naturally, soon as he's stabbed by the King, Landry wakes up in reality and there's boring stuff with his newborn kid who miraculously survived the sword to its mother's stomach (that may or may not have been thanks to the water Landry made her drink from the maybe real/maybe fake Grail). Poor Tancrede (still the best of ALL the Templars in this), getting saddled with taking care of Landry's child. I guess the writers realised how unlikeable Landry was in Season 1, so for the first part of this season he spent it 'repenting'/'being humbled'/'learning humility' after throwing himself at the mercy of the other Templars and begging to rejoin since they'd kicked him out for all his vow-breaking he did. This first episode also saw the introduction of Mark Hamill's character, Talus, who's the 'initiate master' that trains all the Templar initiates, whipping them into shape through the usual tactics these hardened/grizzled teacher types implement (namely treating them in such a rough way that it verges on abuse). If people thought he was old and crotchety in The Last Jedi, this is like that dialed up to ELEVEN. He also seemed to be using a variation of his voice as The Joker from
Batman: The Animated Series. His most ridiculous rule? That when the initiates ate the slop they were served as food, they were only allowed 'seven chews per bite'...no more, no less (and if you tried for eight, he stuck his finger in your mouth until you barfed it up). How messed up a rule is that? What if you only needed
three chews? That means
four more unnecessary chews!
If you've seen any show or movie with a tough drill sergeant type, then you basically know the way this goes with him being hard on the initiates (especially Landry) and making their lives as miserable as possible. However, it wasn't long before Landry was taking charge of the other initiates, since he obviously was well-experienced and knew things they had no clue about, advising them how best
not to die in battle, even finding ways around Talus' seemingly impossible-to-complete tasks. Unfortunately, some initiates didn't listen to Landry's advice and they were all punished for it, but eventually they went from excluding him from eating with them to looking to him as their de facto 'leader'. One of the most amazing feats Landry accomplished was being the bottom of a human ladder so the others could climb on top of each other to reach a wall no one had been able to climb (whilst it was raining). Not sure how Landry managed to not only survive all these guys standing on top of him, but also last long enough when the one who was tasked with making it to the top ended up falling and he had to
start again (then there was the small matter of each man pulling themselves up the rope that was lowered down by the first one to the top - I imagine Landry's arms shouldn't have even been functioning after having the weight of umpteen guys on his shoulders...but we cut away before seeing how that went). The most important part of all this was that it seemed to earn him Talus' respect. Was it realistic? Hardly, but given all the other crazy things that occurred in this show, I just shrugged it off. Mark Hamill managed to breathe some life into the first four episodes of this season, which felt as though they were mostly spent on all this training of new Templars. Without him being amusingly a-holey to everyone (and cussing more than you'd expect to hear from the mouth of Luke Skywalker), things would've been pretty boring. I was bummed when he departed after four episodes, but thankfully that wasn't the last we saw of him. Eventually, the initiates completed Templar College, with Landry among them (so it took him
four whole episodes to get back to what he'd once been). One neat part was the inclusion of lepers in an episode where, despite their affliction, they seemed like pretty cool/decent guys and it was nice that Landry said they needn't have spared the Templars their unsightly visage by keeping their masks on in their own home.
Speaking of 'visages', there was some changing of looks/appearances going on as far as King Philip and the people he surrounded himself with were concerned. In a bizarre case of 'swapsies', it appeared Philip traded his clean-shaveness and long hair with his counsellor/lawyer, De Nogaret, for his short hair and beard. De Nogaret especially looked weird to me now beardless and with longer locks. As was expected, Princess Isabella was recast from Sabrina Bartlett in Season 1 with Genevieve Gaunt in Season 2 (who I came to like after watching her in a show called
The Royals - seems she just can't escape playing a royal - and was one of the reasons I decided to give this show another go). Does she look anything like Sabrina Bartlett? Nope, but who cares? It was a definite upgrade, and with her new appearance came an even
more evil personality as demonstrated by the fact that she held a serious grudge when her brother, Prince Louis (who we'd never met before this episode and I'm pretty sure wasn't even mentioned last season) turned up with his wife, Queen Margaret...who made the mistake of 'patronising'/talking down to Isabella by saying there'd always be a place for her
in her own home. Basically lowkey saying, "Yeah, I'll be Queen and you'll still just be a Princess.
Nyah." - or at least that's the way Isabella evidently took it. This then led to her 'befriending' Margaret under the guise of 'sisterhood', inviting her to dinner, then promptly drugging her and leaving her in a room with two guys who clearly had their way with her unconscious self. And if that wasn't enough, Isabella fooled these rapists into thinking she'd run away with them (giving them each a ring from a three ring set that when put together looked like the symbol from the TV series
Charmed), only for her to gladly have them executed, thus tying up any loose ends (and the ring she pretended was hers? Actually had Margaret's name inscribed on the inside of it so help with the lie that she'd been fooling around with them behind her husband's back). Suffice to say Isabella was a nasty piece of work, but at least less annoying than she was in Season 1 (thanks to Genevieve Gaunt's portrayal). The last time we saw her was when her father reminded her to 'be the wolf' (after we'd heard a story early in the season about everyone having inside of them two wolves - one black and one white - and that whole deal about which one you 'feed' more. I remember first hearing this story - except it was with bears instead of wolves - in the 2019 X-Men movie
The New Mutants) and this was obviously a nod to her becoming the 'She-Wolf of France' which she'd eventually become known as (considering she'd been
against getting shipped off to England by her father to marry a 'known sodomite' at the start of this season, and he threatened her if she
didn't do it, I imagine she was now at the stage where she'd be able to handle her future hubby given how ruthless we'd seen her be).
Meanwhile, Louis was dispatched to go kill children that had been baptised on a certain date because the King eventually discovered that his wife's child that she'd gotten pregnant with from Landry was still
alive (he'd assumed it'd died since he SHOVED A SWORD into her belly last season). Since Landry had Tancrede deliver the child to the nuns (one of which Tancrede had history with/had a thing for, but unlike Landry, he didn't
give into his impulses - another reason he was a much better Templar), they became a target (thanks, Landry!) and had to go on the run to escape Louis. At one stage Landry told Louis the truth about the King being the one who killed his mother, but Louis refused to believe this since his father had led him to believe
Landry was his mother's murderer. Even weirder than Louis managing to disappear in the blink of an eye after shooting an arrow at Landry was Landry managing to shoot Louis after catching up with him again...and then
not finishing him off despite the threat he posed to Landry's child and the nuns. It would've just taken a second, but no, Landry wasted time hesitating and then left him be. Just when you thought Louis might've gotten a clue about his father's true evil nature (as if his father tasking him with killing infants wasn't
already enough of a clue - which Landry pointed out to him), he *still* continued doing his father's bidding. However, he did go ask a prisoner to tell him if he'd witnessed his father killing his mother - one little snag: the guy was
tongueless (which I'm pretty sure Louis actually
saw happen, as his father cut the guy's tongue out in the first episode this season because he had witnessed the King killing the Queen and was spreading this news which was totally messing with the King's narrative of how events went down). Why Louis asked somewhat
without a tongue to 'tell' him something, I have no idea.
Eventually he gave the guy his ring and he cut the symbol of the crown into the prison floor and THEN Louis asked for confirmation of his father being his mother's killer and the guy nodded in response. Louis really could've saved time by
starting with this simple 'yes' or 'no' question. There was another time-wasting scene with Louis tracking the Templars at one stage, going all CSI with examining the hoofprints in the ground and fibers snared on tree branches - all in slow-mo, so it was
really dragged-out.
The King was a pretty pathetic villain, since all of his evil schemes basically just boiled down to him lying about things and all his evil plots depended on those lies. There was the lie about Landry killing Queen Joan, then thanks to Gawain (who was still his annoying self this season, teaming up with the King to take out his former brothers, the Templars) he learned of some heretic belief with a two-skulled something or other that was used as evidence that the Templars were no good (even though this whole thing was fabricated, with them crafting this double-skulled thingy whatsit), then there was a lie to the new Pope (after De Nogaret killed the previous one because he'd had De Nogaret's parents burned at the stake when he was a kid) that he delivered to the Templars whereby they would be given a 'fair trial' if they surrendered...which some of them foolishly did (including their not-so-wise Grandmaster), despite Landry's warnings *not* to do so, only for him to turn out to be
right and they got captured/imprisoned, tortured, killed (or all three) with no intention of there being any sort of 'fair trial' for them. So basically, the King's just a big fat LYING LIAR WHO LIES and that was his entire shtick. Sure, this season
tried to make him out to be some kind of 'badass' by having him torture/kill people with his own hands (at one point he stuck Landry in an iron maiden and slowly drove the spikes inside it into him...but then released him), but he still came across as rather lame. His fatal mistakes were imprisoning Gawain and having him tortured with a nail hammered into his gimpy leg (which he'd only just had come good again thanks to the King's doctors giving him stuff to inject into it) as punishment for failing to deliver Landry, beating up De Nogaret (for failing to do the same) and imprisoning Louis' wife, Margaret, after she was framed by Isabella as having 'cheated' on Louis (who didn't believe it and could tell Isabella was behind it, making a thinly-veiled threat towards her in the final episode...which we'll never know if he delivered on now that the show's prematurely ended). When he
eventually found his wife, she'd already slit her own wrists after having been calling out to him for ages (you just didn't wait long enough, Margaret!). So by turning these three guys who had previously been loyal to him into enemies, there was no one to protect the King when Landry came back to face off against him (both De Nogaret and Louis purposely walked out and closed the doors behind them to leave Landry alone with Philip).
Before finally reaching this last confrontation between the two, we'd had four episodes of initiates in Templar training, two episodes of battle scenes, one episode of torture and this last one kind of involved all of the above (well...except for the initiate Templar training, of course, since they were now all official Templars - none of which I particularly cared about or even bothered to learn the names of despite the show's attempts to *make* me care about them. Some betrayed others, some I got mixed up with each other and most died. It was nice to see Talus/Mark Hamill return to save the remaining ones from burning at the stake (though he was a bit late to save a couple of ones who got roasted first), revealing a big-arse crossbow at his disposal that he used to take out several bad guys...but failed to kill the King. However, he made up for this by taking out a whole group of guys by himself and I was amused by the look he gave as he walked off (like Hamill was thinking, "THIS is the sort of thing people wanted to see me do in TLJ."). One woman, who Louis widowed and also killed the child of in his quest to get rid of all the babies that might've been Landry's (at his father's behest earlier in the season), ended up becoming the Prince's 'pet' after he chained her up, subjected her to his monologuing and I think there was something about him hoping she'd help with his erectile disfunction problem he had...or something? Not real sure what his goal was with her, but the Templars freed her and she gave them sanctuary in her home...which was totally rendered moot when she screamed (I forget why), thus alerting those who were searching for them to their presence in her house (luckily the King's men were pretty easily fooled with some illogical story she spun them to get rid of them). Still, what's the point of a hideout if you basically go screaming "We're in here!"? Though she wasn't the WORST person in the final - no, that would be some little shit who kept yelling out to the King's men
every time he spotted the Templars trying to evade them. I wish that rat bastard had been on the receiving end of multiple arrows instead of poor Tancrede (who was managing to function pretty well for someone who'd already been tortured by having his head cut open and a piece of skin peeled back, exposing the
inside of his head), who got off the boat the few surviving Templars were escaping on to go hold the dying nun he fancied in his arms after she too got shot - albeit with only *one* arrow (lame! It took
many arrows to kill Tancrede!). If there had been a Season 3, I doubt it would've been much fun to watch without Tancrede (I would've gladly traded him for Gawain dying instead. What was Season 3 going to be, just him and Landry continuing to bitch at each other about who wronged who first? No thanks!).
The final scene was the previously-mentioned fight between Landry and Philip - who got a few good licks in, but at the end was no match for Landry who ran him through with his sword, then in a shot mirroring Landry's dream from the start of this season, he stood over Philip's body and brought his sword down on him to deliver the final blow...then the episode abruptly ended. I don't know whether the showrunners knew this show was cancelled or cancellation was pretty likely or what, but on the whole it was a fairly decent 'end' to the series (at least Philip was finally dispatched) whilst leaving some loose threads in case they came back for another season. While this show was by no means 'great' (or even that 'good', really) and despite its admittedly MANY flaws, I found myself sort of into it and didn't really doze off when watching (which I was guilty of doing with the last show I watched on DVD, Seasons 1 & 2 of
The Frankenstein Chronicles - an entirely pointless series which I wouldn't recommend
anyone checking out, despite it featuring Sean Bean as its lead. Talk about a waste!). Even though others apparently didn't think much of this show, I'm glad I gave it another chance.
Made me laugh. Now pay up.
