The Last Kingdom (television series)

   Tagline- England is Born.

Hello friends! I really enjoy period movies and TV shows. The definition of period is: a work set in a particular time period in history and uses props like clothing or objects either directly from or similar to those used in their respective eras. The budgets and scale for these types of media can be quite enormous: James Cameron's Titanic (1997) holds the record for biggest budget for a film ever (at the time at least, it was since beaten by Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides which cost $378.5 million dollars to make) at $200 million. As we know Titanic was a massive success. Globally it made just over 2.2 billion dollars! 

As we see, period films can be enormously expensive and lucrative as well. But what about TV shows and films on streaming services and things like that? Can they hope to compete?  In short, yes. Not every movie with a massive budget and scale will succeed at the box office, or even be a good film for that matter. I'm not mentioning any specific examples because there's not much point in being cynical about a work/works i'm not reviewing. 

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) are well known for their multitude of period dramas, (I can name at least 15-20 off the top of my head) and The Last Kingdom is one of their better known but still somewhat underrated ones. It's based on a series of books called The Saxon Stories by author Bernard Cornwell. The series ran on BBC 2 for one season and then Netflix took over production and absorbed into their streaming service from season 2 onwards. The fifth and final season is expected later this year.

Now for the plot synopis! I can't even claim it's brief haha. Beware of spoilers from here onwards. 

It's the latter half of the ninth century AD (the years 801-900.)  England is... well, not doing so great or recognizable as we know it now. England's fragmented into many small, independent, kingdoms because of savage attacks by the Danes, who for the purposes of this article are basically the same as Vikings. A boy named Osbert (later named Uhtred after his father) is born into this chaotic and violent time in the city of Bebbanburg. This is the ancient name for the modern location of Bamburgh, England. 

His father, also named Uhtred, is enraged when his other son, (named Uhtred as well, I'm not making this up I swear haha) is brutally killed and his corpse desecrated. The now deceased elder son would have been the heir to the kingdom after his father's death, but now the right to the throne will now go to Osbert, who is renamed to Uhtred Uhtredson.  (Fun fact, Bernard Cornwell named his protagonist Uhtred after Cornwell's real life ancestor, Uhtred the Bold, who I believe lived about a century after the fictional Uhtred.)

Lord Uhtred decides to go to battle against the Danes, drive them out of his land, and hopefully even exterminate the whole lot of them in the process. Unfortunately, he underestimates their cunning and advanced battle tactics and is killed along with the vast majority of his army. Osbert/Uhtred had previously snuck away from the castle because he wanted to fight alongside his father on the battlefield. He is captured and taken as a slave alongside a Saxon (another people of Germanic descent) girl named Brida. Uhtred serves his captors well, gains their trust, and becomes accustomed to Dane culture. He serves a chief named Earl Ragnar.

Fast forward a decade or so and Uhtred is a man and is encouraged by Earl Ragnar to marry Brida. Tragedy strikes when Ragnar and his family are killed in a vicious night raid, carried out by a rival Dane lord named Kjartan the Cruel. (I'm sure he's really a nice guy, just a harmless nickna-NO, he's named that for a reason.) Uhtred and Brida, now lovers, manage to escape the massacre.

The attack was revenge for the blinding of Kjartan's son Sven who attacked Ragnar's youngest daughter Thyra when they were children. Kjartan was also banished by Ragnar for this.  With most of Uhtred's family, both biological English family, and adopted Dane family now dead, (except Thyra who is kidnapped by Sven) where will he turn to exact revenge and re-possess Bebbanburg ? 

Enter Alfred the Great, who's a very pious king initially just trying to hold his kingdom together. Alfred  recruits Uhtred to be one of his generals and military advisors. Uhtred reluctantly agrees to this. In return for his servitude,  Alfred promises Uhtred that he will have his full military support in retaking Bebbanburg. Uhtred is in a frustrating and inescapable situation. While he knows he can't besiege Bebbanburg alone, he's very independent and doesn't like relying on others. He'll need help though, because over the course of the series he'll experience betrayals, hardships, and heartbreak.

Hmm that summary took a bit longer than expected and I left out some characters and plot points! Can't spoil too much.  Now we'll move on to the cast and production info.

 Alexander Dreymon plays Uhtred Uhtred/Ragnarson, Peter Gantzler plays Earl Ragnar,  Alexandre Willaume plays Kjartan,  Emily Cox plays Brida, one of my favorite characters, who has a sharp tongue (and a trio of even sharper throwing axes) and just as fierce a warrior as Uhtred. David Dawson plays King Alfred. His stern wife, Aelswith, is played by Eliza Butterworth. Millie Brady plays Alfred's daughter, Aethelflaed. 

The Last Kingdom was mainly filmed in Hungary due to relatively low filming costs there, with some scenes filmed in Wales.  The show was produced by Chrissy Skins, with Nigel Marchant, Stephen Butchard, and Gareth Neame as executive producers. It was edited by Paul Knight, and Chas Bain was in charge of cinematography.

Now I'll stop bombarding you with names haha.  

The Last Kingdom is a very good example of a period drama with realistic and dynamic characters which are helped enormously by the tremendous cast.  You really come to love their characters, (or hate them for that matter, I'm looking at you Sven, you cowardly worm.) Sorry what was I talking about? Ah yes the cast is great, the pacing of the show does lag a bit sometimes, but not everything has to be all action all the time. The cinematography is very good, with lots of beautiful scenery,  uncut tracking shots, and so on.  I'd definitely recommend this show to anyone and it's certainly one of my favorites.

That's all for now! Thanks so much for reading, I appreciate all of you!

Till next time,

Conrad Smith