Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands - Episodes 4 and 5

"There. Sure glad I don't look stupid in this."

Reva gets herself made Jarl, but on two conditions: That Beowulf be her Reeve, and that Slean marry a princess of the Mire, a 'lost tribe' who pop up out of nowhere to split the tie.

While Rheda and Slean deal with stuff at home, Beowulf is dispatched to take a dowry of iron swords to the Mire and bring back the bride, accompanied by the Mire rep, Healer Girl and Sleazy Sidekick. Spunky Blacksmith Girl follows and accidentally invades a Mudborn burial ground, kicking off some shit, and the rep is killed in the resulting stand off. Fortunately, Beowulf is able to distract them from the small desecration of their burial ground by setting fire to it and the problem is solved. They make their way across a strip of sand to the Isle of Dunes, unaware of the pursuing sandworms.

I was joking about the sandworm!

Uh, yeah; it turns out that it is totally a sandworm, a small one, but definitely shai-hulud. They flee, but the dowry is eaten.

Back in Heorot, Rheda's brother is trying to subborn Slean into an alliance: Back him as Jarl and Slean can be Thane of Heorot, but Slean isn't biting, even though Rheda's idea of common laws for all tribes is proving divisive and no-one seems to know they difference between a statute and a contract.

Beowulf and party receive a very cool reception, given the lack of rep and dowry, but at least the bride's father is a reasonable man, right?

"I've been thinking about colour schemes for the wedding..."

They bluff about the dowry and meet the bride, who almost immediately falls ill. She's in love with their Reeve and, overhearing that the dowry is absent, spills the beans and sets Beowulf up for a fall when he volunteers to hunt shai-hulud and claim the waters of life. With sidekick and the Reeve to help, and Beowulf tapping the sand to attract the worm, they kill one and harvest its vital glands. Reeve leaves them stranded in the middle of sandworm territory, but they find the dowry in the worm's gullet and make their way back with no trouble at all.

"How do you call among your the mouse that jumps?"

The dowry is delivered, but the bride dies, despite her treatment. Fortunately, her younger sister leaps in to volunteer, and leaves her shitty sand dune home with the kind of smile that suggests her sister didn't recover from the fever on account of all that poison Little Sister slipped her.

So, yeah; Beowulf fights sandworms to earn an marriage alliance with Walder Fremen, and David Bradley once more gets to seethe about how no-one betrays him over a nuptial deal. This show really does want to be anything but Beowulf.

Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands - Episode 3

I can't help feeling that the steward of Heorot didn't get the message about
dropping the 80s make up theme.

Beowulf and Rate head off in search of Slean and Scorann (who is Rate's brother, not that I recall knowing this before,) accompanied by... well, no-one actually. Even Beowulf's sidekick is just kicking his heels in Heorot and occasionally antagonising the captive skinshifter for no real reason.

While the hunters bond a bit and Scorann helps Slean to grow up, Rheda must preside over the trial of the skinshifter's wife, whose life is forfeit if she knew what he was. After fighting off the unwelcome advances of another Thane, she tricks the accused's daughter into admitting that they knew what her step-dad was, but the skinshifter breaks loose when told that she is to be executed. In the confusion as he is cut down, Healer Girl helps the wife and daughter escape, leaving no means of learning who is behind the whole nasty business.

Scorann and Slean break out when Beowulf and Rate attack their guards, although Scorann is mortally wounded, choosing death in battle over a chance of recovery. Slean recognises the kidnappers' employer as his uncle's man, and thus deduces that his uncle planned the whole thing to discredit Rheda, allowing him to step in.

Return to the Shieldlands continues to be complete bollocks, but mildly diverting bollocks.

Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands - Episode 2

Our publicity image for this episode features J'onn J'onzz, David Ajala threatening to do me in for calling him Black Tim Curry, and the dead stunt casting again, despite him not being in this episode at all.

I think we may be in the lands of the post-apocalyptic parallel, a concept I came up with to describe the way in which a sufficiently dodgy pseudohistorical setting is improved by regarding it not as the original historical or pseudohistorical story, but a loosely equivalent story set in a post-apocalyptic world, hence the goofball costume choices and scads of black Scandinavians.

Episode 2 sees the Queen trying to delay the approaching Thanes until Beowulf PI can track down a skinshifter, the shapeshifting mudborn that killed the old reeve. This leads to the smelters, an underclass of mostly black vikings who... keep beasts for gladiatorial combat? I'm actually not sure. I may not have been paying attention. He briefly suspects Thoroughly Modern Millie, but she gets her kit off and he's convinced. (Seriously; he knows the skinshifter is injured, so she drops her dress to prove a) that she's not it, b) that she's modern and comfortable with her body and c) that this show sucks at subtle sexual tension.) Beowulf partners up with the chief of viking police, Col, who turns out to be the skinshifter in a twist which would have been shocking if I'd known who the fuck he was before this episode.

The Queen meets the Thanes and tries to persuade them to make her Jarl. The interchangeable old white gits (full disclosure; there may just have been the one guy) seem loosely in favour, but her main rival is dead set against her policy of appeasing the mudborn. When I heard his voice I thought they'd somehow cast young, cute Tim Curry, and he does look a bit like him, but black, and without the need for time travel. Of course, now I'm stuck thinking of him as black Tim Curry, which doesn't make me feel good about myself. I have white guilt. I look at actor David Ajala in the picture above with his 'come at me bro' stance and its like he's calling me out for it.

Meanwhile, Prince Sneerface meets up with another Thane, played by David Harewood (Supergirl's J'onn J'onzz, so naturally with all this shapeshifting going on, I'm liking him for a Martian) and gets captured trying to rescue one of the thane's soldiers from bandits. Fair play, Sneerface is actually a pretty complicated character; a bit of a weasel, but committed to his inappropriate girlfriend and not without some chutzpah.

I'm starting to wonder why I'm still watching this, but it's drawing me back with an Atlantis-like magnetism.

Beowulf - 'Episode 1'

Lady Blacksmith, Dead Stuntcasting, Sir Not Appearing in Episode 1, Beowulf, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Cheeky McSidekick, Prince Sneerface and the Queen

As the opening credits of Beowulf : Return to the Shieldlands begin and animated gripping beasts crawl across stylised Viking artwork, one thing is clear: This series really wants to be Game of Thrones.

Young Beowulf puts an axe in a troll's head after it kills his father, and is adopted by Hrothgar, King of Heorot (pronounced 'Eret', apparently.) Years later, after being banished for reasons which remain obscure for almost the entire episode (he didn't get on with his less capable foster brother Prince Sneerface and the Queen clearly knew that he was actually Hrothgar's son,) he returns to pay his last respects to the dead king. There's a fight and we meet the Queen, grown up Prince Sneerface and his healer girlfriend Thoroughly Modern Millie*. The Queen is, it turns out, now the Thane of Heorot, part of a sweeping tide of feminism which also sees a female blacksmith and TMM as the chief healer.

While Beowulf's rogue Cheeky McSidekick marries the blacksmith's mum so that... All right, I'm not sure on this one. It might just be to annoy the blacksmith. He doesn't seem set on settling down at all. Anyway, while that is going on, Beowulf find the Reeve murdered, apparently by a mudborn - a sort of goblin-ape - which runs off chasing TMM while Prince Sneerface is busy arresting Beowulf for murder. Cheeky McSidekick interrupts the execution and they hare off to rescue TMM, although the mudborn isn't trying to hurt her, instead saving her from a barghest (a hybrid of wolf and CGI) and seemingly trying for some King Kong action.) It gets in a fight with Beowulf and loses half a hand.

Back at the ranch, TMM goes all CSI Heorot and discovers that the Reeve was actually stabbed, and apparently using a weapon with a round profile, which honestly ought to be pretty easy to track down in nth century Denmark**. You'd think someone might have checked that before condemning the man with only flat-bladed weapons.

Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands is not desperately bad - by which I mean it's a lot better than, say, Olympus, more or less the definition of damning with faint praise - but it's not anything resembling good. The acting is decent, the plot has a few twists, and the fights are okay - when the camera isn't juddering with each impact, which could really get old - but there's nothing much to distinguish it and on the whole it's - so far - pretty standard and predictable fare. It really, really wants to be Game of Thrones, but in many ways represents everything that Game of Thrones is a reaction to, from intrusively modern sensibilities to the small, core cast and straightforward plotting.

* So, obviously the names haven't impacted on me in this thing, and healer chick is the ridiculously liberal one speaking the modern sensibilities.
** The blurb says Britain, and since Beowulf clearly isn't a Geat I can't swear that Heorot hasn't moved.