Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands (2016)

 

When he hears the news that his adoptive father, Thane Hrothgar, has died, the warrior Beowulf returns to his home settlement of Herot.  Beowulf does not expect - and does not get - a warm welcome, but even he is not prepared for the conflict that the Thane's death unleashes.

Hrothgar, you see, was High Thane of all the human tribes of the Shieldlands.  His demise leaves the position empty, launching a host of schemes and counter-schemes from those who aspire to take his place on the throne.

These candidates include Hrothgar's widow, his son, and his brother, all of whom have a complicated relationship with each other, and an equally complicated history with Beowulf.  Their political machinations - as well as those of others with an interest in the struggle - leave the human tribes disunited and vulnerable.  And there could not be a worse time for this to happen, as the threat of the rapacious Wolflings and the inhuman creatures known as "mudbloods" has never been greater.

Though planned as the first season of an epic fantasy series, these thirteen episodes proved to be the entire run of Beowulf.  Having watched them, it's not hard to see why.

It's not the fault of the cast.  They're a generally talented bunch who do their best to make their characters compelling and relateable.

It's not even the fault of the CGI.  Yes, it frequently lacks a real sense of weight and substance, making obvious the unreality of the creatures depicted, but overall it's not too terrible for a 2016 TV show.  Particularly one that is operating on a much lower budget than something like Game of Thrones.

The fault lies with the writing.

The first big issue is that the title character is least interesting person in the show.  As noted above, this is nothing to do with the actor's performance, which is fine.  It's that Beowulf is just a bland man of action that we've seen a hundred times before.  He lacks any real development over the course of the season, and his basic lack of depth is highlighted by the fact that he is surrounded by more interesting characters that simply don't get as much screen time. The show would be much improved if his embittered adoptive brother Slean was the primary character.  Slean actually both a distinctive personality and a recognisable arc.

The second issue is that on numerous occasions, characters act in ways that so nothing to advance their own agendas, without any clear in character motivation for doing so.  One villainous character spends the first half of the season scheming nefarious schemes don't get them a single step closer to their actual goals.

Even more damning, characters often simply fail to act at all: I lost count of the number of times that characters stood around passively watching things go wrong for them, and made no effort to change them.

Clearly, in all these cases the writers are attempting to contrive tension and justify escalating risks that characters do take.  The thing is, while "My schemes have failed to help me so I must take a big gamble!" is reasonable enough as a plot point in principle, it feels very false and forced when the original scheme was never actually going to help them.

The writing and direction also fails in the smaller details.  We have monsters called "Sandworms" who explicitly never actually go into sand dunes, despite the fact that they travel through other kinds of sand.  Why?  Because the writing needs it to be that way.  What we see of mudblood society is inconsistent and incoherent.  Heck, what we see of human society is incoherent and inconsistent.  The wolflings are ragged raiders who live outside the civilised realms ... but who are somehow able to raise an army many times more numerous than Herot can.  How does that work?

The cast deserved better material.