Vikings (Season 1)
The dvds for the first season (consisting of nine episodes) just were released here in Germany, I heard some positive murmurings, and so I decided to go for it. Overall verdict, based on the first season? I liked it, and it improved my opinion of Michael Hirst's writing abilities for historical subjects, hitherto something of a mixed affair. (I will never, ever, forgive him for the line "my queen rules with her heart, not with her head", spoken about Elizabeth Tudor of all the queens. And The Tudors were, well, mixed, and for every Natalie Dormer rendering Anne Boleyn's actual last words, there was a howler like the miraculously thin staying Henry.) Of course, he's got the advantage of working in a time where myths and history are mixed in favour of the myths anyway in Vikings, and Ragnar Lodbrok, while a saga hero, is far less known than any of the Tudors on a global level, which means no preconceptions on the part of the audience.
But it's more than that which endeared this first season to me. Basically the only thing I knew in advance about the show was that there was a Saxon monk named Athelstan in it who got captured by the Vikings, and I had assumed Hirst would go for the obvious and make him the pov character. But no. Athelstan only shows up in the second episode, at a point where all the other main characters are already established, and while he sticks around for the rest of the season, he's only one of several supporting characters, and about the only occasions where I'd say the narrative uses him as the pov character is when human sacrifices become a plot point. Instead of using Athelstan as the audience pov, the show emerges its audience into the world of the Vikings (who are never called that on-show, which is accurate as far as I know; the term was invented much later) from the get go, focusing on its central family, young-farmer-to-become-legend Ragnar, his wife Lagertha, who is also a shield maiden, their children Björn and Gyda and Ragnar's brother Rollo. Also important to the ongoing plot: Ragnar's friend Floki, a ship builder (guess who his favourite deity is), his liege lord Jarl Haraldson, and Haraldson's wife Siggy.
Now several of the plot twists are to be expected - i.e. you know from the get go the Jarl sees Ragnar as a younger rival and therefore is going to be a main antagonist, or that Rollo plays the classic jealous brother role (the only question is how long his affection for his brother will fight with his jealousy, not which will win) -, but the way they're told doesn't feel stale or clichéd but organic. Helped by the fact that a lot of the other storytelling choices are (still) unusual. Lagertha is the main female character, and she's already a married woman and the mother of two children when we meet her. (BTW, thankfully the actress has a figure that makes it believable she's a warrior who can defeat male warriors. She gets some great action scenes, and there are in larger battle scenes some female warriors depicted to make it clear Lagertha isn't the only shield maiden around.) Instead of using "will they or won't they?" type of romances, the show gives us two married couples with history behind them in terms of male/female relationships. Mind you, Siggy doesn't really get fleshed out until episode 5, but from that point on she's fascinating, and NOT the "mate of evil overlord" cliché the first look at her and the coal lines on her eyes in the pilot might lead you to assume. She's also at least in her early 40s (Lagertha is in her early to mid 30s, I'd say), so both the main and the most important supporting female characters are adult women well into their lives. Who, btw, as opposed to their menfolk don't have an antagonistic relationship with each other. (If they do in later seasons, don't tell me yet.) And, btw, are a great demonstration that no, the interest a story takes in you doesn't have to end the moment you get married and reproduce. That can just as well be only the beginning.
It also doesn't take the easy way out when it comes to the Viking raids. By which I mean: after a pilot detailing the humanity of all the Viking main characters and inviting the audience to share their pov, you get to see them pillage and plunder in the second episode, and their victims aren't characters previously made unsympathetic so the audience doesn't mind that much. They're also unarmed and thus utterly helpless. This does not sway Our Heroes to mercy, au contraire. They're delighted everything is so easy for the taking and cut down unarmed people without a flicker of hesitation and remorse, taking those whom they don't kill as slaves to be sold. And the show never pretends this isn't what they're doing.
Not every choice works. For example, I didn't buy that Lagertha and Ragnar would invite Athelstan to a threesome basically a few days after Ragnar met him and a few hours after Lagertha did. Later, yes, but not that early. Spoiler: he says no. A few episodes later, Floki and his wife offer one of Ragnar's and Floki's shipmates a threesome, and see, that I could entirely believe, because all three people knew each other before, and there wasn't a giant status difference. Incidentally, and speaking of sex, for the first six episodes, everyone keeps their clothes on when having it due to the climate. Then you get female nudity, but male (frontal) nudity as well.
Lastly, a minor frustration: this show has some great visuals of Viking ships, in fjords, on the open sea, and ominously sailing up the British river Tyne. I just went on the lookout whether any of these were made into icons, but no. What icons of the show exist solely features the actors. Which, fine, they deserve it, but - Viking ships!
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