Carnival Row

Qhue · Jul 19, 2019

4.22 star(s) Rating: 4.22/5 9 Votes

Title: Carnival Row

Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy

First aired: 2019-08-30

Cast: Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne, David Gyasi, Karla Crome, Indira Varma, Tamzin Merchant, Simon McBurney

Overview: In a mystical and dark city filled with humans, fairies and other creatures, a police detective investigates a series of gruesome murders leveled against the fairy population. During his investigation, the detective becomes the prime suspect and must find the real killer to clear his name.

Qhue · Jul 19, 2019

Qhue · Jul 19, 2019

I had heard a bit about this, but the production values on this are WAAAAY more than I was expecting. This is full fledged Steampunk Fairies and could actually be pretty decent.

Mahes · Aug 7, 2019

Orlando Bloom is a descent actor. The idea looks different. I will give this a look.

Qhue · Aug 30, 2019

This dropped today. Not sure on the overarching plot yet, but the production values are through the roof. It's got BBC period-piece authenticity for a completely fantastical version of roughly 1890. (Though it's 600-something by their calendar)

To the extent that there is a common 'big bad' it would seem to be

Cthulhu-inspired. Which in and of itself is extra badass.

jooka · Aug 30, 2019

I watched a couple episodes last night, definitely high production budget and so far the story is good, with great potential lurking around the corner.

Cybsled · Aug 30, 2019

1.5 episodes in. Love the setting...like a Victorian London with fantasy creatures acting as the underclass.

Amazon has been batting .500 with its recent series (Boys, Good Omens, Expanse soon to come, this show)

velk · Aug 30, 2019

Thumbs up from me after watching all of it. Great setting, very high production values and an interesting story that was pretty twisty without being implausibly so.

Obviously going after Game of Thrones market.

Also Philo is an idiot - of all the people to take relationship advice from, he picks Tourmaline ? Lol.

Cybsled · Aug 31, 2019

Finished watching all of it. 10/10 for me. The gaslight/Victorian era mixed with fantasy was a big plus. Lots of 19th century parallels, including to Italian/Serbian anarchists, empire building, and stuff like HG Wells/Mary Shelly.

Not sure why there are a bunch of 1 star review bombs on Amazon for it, though. I am guessing because political shits who never read a history book or fantasy novel get triggered by anything involved refugees or immigrants? I swear if you released WoW today, they'd get their panties in a bunch about gnome refugees to Ironforge.

Caliane · Aug 31, 2019

Cybsled said:
1.5 episodes in. Love the setting...like a Victorian London with fantasy creatures acting as the underclass.

Amazon has been batting .500 with its recent series (Boys, Good Omens, Expanse soon to come, this show)

what?
which of those did you not like?

Qhue · Aug 31, 2019

Ended up binging the whole damn thing and it was great. Victorian to a T with all manners of elements from the literature of the period as well as the waning of the gilded age in the UK combined with the plight of the immigrants in America** with just enough dark fantasy to leave you wanting more.

Like any good period drama it was very easy to get wrapped into the whole thing. The whole 8 episode series feels like the first Act in a longer story and I'm eager to see what they have planned.

**the story is very much anchored in the plight of the Irish and Italian immigrants to America and it's amazing that people have forgotten how pissed off people were in the Victorian age about the 'micks and wops' coming into the picture. Taking their jobs and with their filthy Catholicism etc. Hell the simple matter of the Fae having Irish accents locks that down...

jooka · Aug 31, 2019

Qhue said:
Like any good period drama it was very easy to get wrapped into the whole thing. The whole 8 episode series feels like the first Act in a longer story and I'm eager to see what they have planned.

I've watched up to 4 now and after the 4th I was thinking I could handle 6-8 seasons of this. Really good so far.

Cybsled · Aug 31, 2019

Caliane said:
what?
which of those did you not like?

I liked all those

Fedor · Aug 31, 2019

Cybsled said:
I liked all those

Qhue · Aug 31, 2019

I am interested to see what the deal is with The Pact. They are essentially faceless villains whenever we hear about them, which is not terribly often past the first 10 mins of the first episode

Are they truly as horrible as they are made out to be? Why did they have all those women and children in a camp? I figure there is more going on here than they are willing to let on at this point.

Cybsled · Aug 31, 2019

Pact basically came across as an Ottoman/Prussian Empire type entity. All we really know is Bruge soldiers allied with "main" sects of Pixie, Pucks, etc. But they did mention that the Pact were working with rival sects of fae during the flashback scene, although I got the impression the rival sects were probably more in line with guerilla / "terrorist" type sects, since it is referenced that the main capitals of the fae were wiped out (they even mention them as guerillas at one point). The Pact did seem rather genocide inclined from what we saw of them, though.

I do want them to dive more into more of the politics of the various nations, though. Be interesting if they used this as an allegory for the march towards WW1, since the current engagements seem to have much in common with the various proxy wars during European empire expansion in the 19th century.

Qhue · Aug 31, 2019

While a lot of it has obvious echoes in Victorian era stuff I feel that the 'war' itself has more of a basis in Vietnam what with the whole 'that was a war we could have won!' business. I also see that Jill Pantozzi of io9 disliked the show, which is also high praise in my book as she has horrible taste.

Cybsled · Aug 31, 2019

Spoilers as it talks about end of S1 and S2 beginning

'Carnival Row' showrunners break down that season finale and what's to come in season 2

'Carnival Row' showrunners Travis Beacham and Marc Guggenheim answer our burning questions about Amazon's fantasy drama.

ew.com

Sounds like the Black Raven will begin to more closely mirror the rise of the Italian/Irish crime syndicates/mafia during the late 19th/early 20th century. It also sounds like the season will get more into geopolitical stuff (presumably the Pact), so I could see them moving towards a WW1 analog as proxy war turns into full blown war...which actually will end up making sense as a possible resolution for the fae issues (ie, we need them as soldiers to save the nation). WW1 with fantasy creatures would be fucking awesome, but if they went that angle, then it would be a hypothetical season 3 more than likely

Caliane · Aug 31, 2019

Cybsled said:
I liked all those

are.. you just really bad at baseball?

.500 is 50%.

Brodhi · Aug 31, 2019

How much cringe SJW stuff is there, I can handle a tiny bit if the show is good enough

Carnival Row

Tranny Chaser

Tranny Chaser

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Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Tranny Chaser

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Tranny Chaser

marco esquandolas

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Tranny Chaser

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Tranny Chaser

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Avatar of War Slayer

I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.