Remember that we in the UK are a couple of weeks behind you.
I’m in the UK and I have so struggled with this. It would surely be 6.00pm Saturday kids tv but for the ‘ploughing’ and violence. Overly simplistic.
It reminds me of Keith Carradine and that kung fu show from 30 years ago #grasshopper
Sorry about that- normally for UK based shows, we are the ones behind…
Just saw the last episode – terrific end to a terrific season. Very well written and performed, and a fantastic final battle season. Hope it’s renewed!
See, I see the opposite. The duality between Uhtred-as-Dane and Uhtred as a Saxon is cleverly done; the writers* have resisted the impulse to lionize Alfred or the church too much; and, they haven’t tried to make Uhtred the perfect hero character either.
There are only a few niggling things that bother me. Like, why is Leofric’s face always so fucking dirty, even when he has an audience before the witan?
Ha ha…my significant other commented the identical thing. “What I really wonder is when will Leofric wash his face?”
Just watched episode 7 . Takes me away for an hour, perfect entertainment !
Personally, I like the fact that they’ve resisted the temptation to calm Uhtred down and make him more… reasonable. He’s sort of heroic, but he’s also insanely violent, a loose cannon, and honorable in his own weird way.
He’s definitely a kind of anti-hero in the books, and I suspect if there’s a second season, we’ll see even more of that.
Yes, he’s kind of a different take on the bastard child or mixed-race child not properly accepted by any group. He definitely has anger management issues 
Fwiw, I thought it got stronger though it’s not exactly subtle.
BBC just confirmed a second season today.
I was oddly excited to see some of the Witan hiding at Sherborne, since I did most of my growing-up there and in Yeovil (just down the A30). It didn’t look much like Sherborne, though. That was particularly disappointing since bits of modern-day Sherborne Abbey was already there at the time of Alfred (Sherborne was the capital of Wessex until Alfred’s reign).
Very glad to hear this!
Most of it was filmed in Hungary, with the coastal scenes filmed in Wales.
Wyrd bið ful aræd
(which is something they’ve sort of hinted at, but book-Uhtred was much more resigned to the Saxon idea of fate than TV-Uhtred seems to be.)
Tried it, pretty good, but too much Uhtred and not enough Alfred.
Any news on the first season being released on DVD?
DVRed the whole 8 episodes and watched them over the course of the last 2 weeks. Great fun. My genetic heritage is (in decreasing proportions) Welsh (Celtic), Scots, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and a smattering of others (“whatever a Welshman could run to ground,” as the family joke goes), but I’ve never left North America. So the setting and timeframe have deep resonance to me.
Watching this portrayal of Alfred, I can’t help but think of Barbara Tuchman’s descriptions of Enguerrand of Coucy in A Distant Mirror. Although Coucy inhabited a different era (mid-1300s France) and was substantially more martial in character than this Alfred, he too became famous mostly because he showed the capacity for sober judgment and rational analysis virtually everyone else around him lacked. Tuchman talked at length about the persistent juvenility and poor impulse control we encounter again and again in the actions of medieval people, even leaders and kings.
The ability to make long-term plans…hell, simply not being hot-headed and childish, seems like a superpower compared to Alfred’s contemporaries.
I would agree with this. I understand the utility of having an outsider character act as the audience’s surrogate, but Alfred is just so much more interesting than Uhtred.
Just watched the first few episodes - I’m really enjoying this. I like how Alfred is portrayed as always thinking several moves ahead.
Is Earl Ragnar in the first episode supposed to be the same historical person as Ragnar Lothbrok, who is the main character in “Vikings”?