Carnival Row

The world Carnival Row creates is handsomely realised and sufficiently different from Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc to feel like its own unique corner of the fantasy universe.

The main attraction of “Carnival Row” is, in fact, its incongruities—the familiar in unfamiliar places, an amalgamation of myths, tropes and themes wedded to each other despite their seeming incompatibilities. Not everything works in the show. But when it does, it takes flight.

Amazon Prime’s new allegorical steampunk fantasy is grim, gory, and exhaustingly self-serious.

Bland intrigue, a lack of mystery, and too little time spent with its best characters has sapped this show’s magic and left only dour drama behind.

It’s a show with certainly admirable ambitions, but through nearly every aspect of its swirling narrative, “Carnival Row” is less than the sum of its otherworldly parts.

Too crass to care about, too serious to take seriously. Still, for all that, it is a solidly crafted creation with only the set designers working even harder than the leads.

What is by turns a Jack the Ripper riff, an Austen-style comedy of manners and a dark political thriller (starring the great Jared Harris), with a Dickensian street gang and a fairy brothel thrown in for kicks. These story lines rarely intersect with one another or with the show’s themes of anti-imperialism and tolerance in a way that justifies the collage of references. And hacky dialogue (“Oh, come now, woman!”) doesn’t help.

I liked every minute of this series. The cast is outstanding and the story well narrated. Costumes, location and colours are really something that must make you think how much they care for the scenes.

Season 1 had a basic mystery plot and the pace was good through the eight episodes. The sub-plots tie in with the main plot and one can follow the entire season. There is too much political correctness and bigotry in the writing but the special effects and settings are nice. The illumination of the background story of the current world is woefully lacking, so one is a bit confused on the why's and wherefore's of the current world. The second season ups the ante of confusion with multiple story lines, some of them don't illuminate the overall story or help us understand what the sub-plots are and why they matter to the overall story. There are a number of characters that appear and make us wonder what their purpose is too. But, if one can tolerate the dark atmosphere and gruesome scenes then we'd rate this "It is worth watching, if you have a strong stomach and like fantasy shows."

Not bad, but also not awful. After watching the second season of that ****ing dog**** Knightfall show, I wanted something weird and fun to satisfy my needs. In came Carnival Row with some actual good worldbuilding for a change. The world is great. Steampunk, strong accents, mixed in fantasy elements like pixies and half-goats or some ****, Lovecraftian vibe in a couple episodes. It's all awesome! The first two episodes overall are pretty solid, with the worldbuilding being a strong focus; which isn't surprising since the guy spent one tenth of a century creating it as far as I know. Episode three however is a **** mess. The two main characters, portrayed by Orlando Bloomer and Cara Delevingne, are alright as characters but have a **** cliche rushed romance plot forced in which happens in the span of like four scenes. First scene they're together in, Cara's doing the whole angry ready to **** kill thing, and the next scene she's showing **** me eyes. I did like it because I'm a creep, but it was rushed. They have a weird sex scene where Cara's pixie wings (because she's a pixie btw) start glowing when they're ****ing. Does this happen only when she's horny? I've no idea. Their movements were also really weird during the intercourse scene. Like Cara had a nob too. The recording also sounded weird. The boom mic is supposed to be above them, not shoved in their a$$holes. The entire third episode is a rushed mess to get some backstory over with, but it's watchable and the acting from Delevingne is surprisingly decent. It's sometimes even good. Although she has her bad moments too. The rest of the show is also a rushed mess. The season has eight episodes, and by the fourth episode they have three subplots going, a main plot and a triangle drama. One of the subplots almost took over completely, although I didn't mind because Tamzin Merchant was easily the best part of the show. She has some ****ing CHARM. The main plot eventually becomes a forgettable mess, with this completely out of place Lovecraftian monster that's only there to be a tool for other plots to go forward. By the sixth episode the show devolves into an absolute rushed ****show, with subplots here and there, too many characters, and scenes that feel like they range from a couple minutes to 15 seconds. It's chaos, but the production value's good so I didn't mind watching. And if that wasn't enough, the seventh episode has another romance; this time with Tamzin Merchant and a **** half-goat who's clearly made to be the discriminated N-word race. Predictable and lame social commentary. By the end I felt like there were no more main characters or main plot. It was just a disaster, albeit an entertaining one! Subplots were wrapped up and intertwined together in like 10 seconds. The seventh episode also introduced another villain that no-one cares about. Go away! She was probably there to bait a second season. Definitely more memorable than Knightfall though, **** that show. If there's ever a second season, maybe I'll just watch it! Overall a weirdass show with good production value, awesome accents, decent acting, and a story that falls apart like my parents's marriage. What just happened O_o :D

Cara is surprisingly good for once, rest of the show is predictable. The sets show where the money went.

In itself a decent series. But wouldn't it be the fact that you break off almost every storyline after a short time. Where else does the action make sense??? A second minus point is the female main role. Where did the actors learn??