The Last Kingdom: Should You Watch It? (Series Review)
A little over three months ago, I finished watching the first season of The Last Kingdom, a historical fiction epic whose first couple of seasons aired on BBC Two, and gave the show a mostly positive review. Well, I’ve finally finished watching the entire series, which consisted of five total seasons (46 episodes) and a Netflix-released two-hour movie. Overall, The Last Kingdom is a show I’d recommend, and probably one of the most bingeable TV shows I’ve ever watched.
It's always great when you can find a show that’s already completed its run to enjoy. Such shows can be difficult to find since after a season or two of a hit, well-reviewed series, it’s hard not to jump on board for the ride. With such a large gap between most seasons of a show though, and with seasons of most programs often varying in quality, it’s not necessarily the best way to enjoy a show. The best way is when you’ve got the entire complete series to enjoy within the span of a few months – and such was the case for me with The Last Kingdom.
In my initial review, I compared The Last Kingdom’s feel to that of the History Channel’s show, Vikings. I still think it’s a fair comparison, but after finishing The Last Kingdom, there’s a lot that this show does better than Vikings. Vikings definitely lost steam as the seasons progressed, a problem that The Last Kingdom doesn’t suffer from at all.
In fact, I would say one of the greatest strengths of The Last Kingdom as a whole is it’s consistency in terms of tone and quality throughout its run. The fact that the entire series is based off of Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories series of novels really helps it maintain a consistent level of quality, as well as the same tone.
Since each 8-10 episode season is actually based off of at least two novels, the show also never drags. The Last Kingdom is never boring, with the plot moving along at a quick pace. Story threads that might take several episodes to be resolved in similar programs are wrapped up in half an episode here, and I never felt like this fast-moving pace was a hinderance at all to the show.
Another one of my favorite aspects of The Last Kingdom is that it’s largely just a fun show. So many television shows nowadays are trying so hard to be “prestige TV,” but fail to provide viewers with an experience that’s actually enjoyable. The most recent show that springs to mind like this, though it’s obviously in an entirely different genre, is HBO’s Succession. Sure, the acting and writing on Succession might be technically superior to the acting and writing on The Last Kingdom, but I’d argue that The Last Kingdom is a far more enjoyable show. Not every series needs to be “A-tier,” and it’s sometimes these “B-tier” shows (like The Last Kingdom) that are more bingeable and fun to watch.
I think it’s both a weakness and a strength that nothing that happened story-wise in The Last Kingdom really surprised me. It could be seen as a weakness since it’s an accomplishment when a show’s creators can really shock us with something happening that makes sense in terms of the story, but that viewers didn’t really expect. At the same time, there’s something comforting in knowing that the “good guys” on a show will ultimately win-out. It can still be entertaining to see how the show gets us to such a “happy ending,” even if we can pretty much figure out that a happy ending is coming.
The star of The Last Kingdom is its lead, Alexander Dreymon, who plays the show’s clear main character, Uhtred (son of Uhtred, also known as Uhtred of Bebbanburg). Dreymond is a good enough actor to carry a series, and his portrayal of Uhtred, like the show as a whole, really grew on me as seasons went on.
I think the two hour movie, The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die, which totally wraps up the story, is a little bit of a misfire. It’s fine, but not really necessary. Trying to cram three books worth of material into a two-hour film is not an easy task, and while I think the movie isn’t bad, how good can a movie trying to squeeze three books into its runtime really be? It’s more of a 7/10-type movie.
As a whole though, when looking at the entire The Last Kingdom series, it’s one that I definitely would recommend to anyone who’s a fan of these types of shows. It’s consistent storytelling and five engaging seasons make for some of the best hours of TV that Netflix currently has to offer. I’ll miss watching the adventures of Uhtred and his companions. For a show that was often very violent, it still had a relaxing, familiar quality to its episodes – where you knew what you were going to get, but that didn’t mean it would be any less fun.
Grade: 8.5/10