If there’s a big Game of Thrones-shaped hole in your life, Cursed could be the series to fill it. Arthurian legend, wild magic, strange creatures, unusually beautiful people and a massive sword (obviously). But, it has big shoes to fill.
As you might have guessed from the sword-wielding promo, Cursed is another retelling of the Arthurian myths, this time starring Katherine Langford as Nimue, who will eventually become the Lady of the Lake (remember her?) Vicky Frost in the Evening Standard laments that the “sword-clanging barely stops in these first episodes — it comes to a point where you’re glad of the thud of an axe as it embeds itself in some poor villager’s head.” And that “with production values that are more HBO than BBC1 and action that skips along at pace, it’s all very watchable.” The Times’s Hugo Rifkind reckons Cursed is “bonkers. It feels, at first, like a predictable, low-rent fantasy. You know those ones where it’s medieval, but also suspiciously clean?” Admiring a scene where a group of monks are attacking a witches’ village he notes, “it was raining blood. As in, literally, instead of normal rain. And I thought: ‘Yup, I can work with this.’” In The Telegraph, Michael Hogan asks the big question: “Is it the next GoT? Sadly not but it’s a perfectly serviceable slice of escapism while we wait for the next contender.” He thinks that whilst the script is “disappointingly flat”, Cursed is “visually striking. Thrill-wise, it has Thrones-like levels of horseback combat, sword fights, flying arrows and castle sieges.”
As a coming-of-age story it combines a strong female lead with themes that will appeal to a young audience: racism, terror and man-made threats to the nature. Cursed is set to become a teen-hit, but could also be worth a watch for the whole family.
First shown July 2020. Watch the trailer You can watch the trailer by pressing play on the show image, or by clicking here.
