The Musketeers - BBC 2014 Adaptation.

[Starkers]

Whoa that last episode was really good, finally Capaldi gets to show what he can do, and I love that even when the show focuses on just one or two of the Musketeers the others always get something to do. Love all the political intrigue, for a while there I felt like I was watching Game of Thrones...though obviously with a lot less violence!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Lost me last week, decided to cancel my series link. I thought the bit in Weekly Wipe was spot on.

 

[Starkers]

Seriously? I think i's great, what does Charlie Brooker have against it?

 

[Guy Gardener]

They are not following through.

Reset button.

Grand adventure out of no where after a massive series of coincidences where someone meets an old friend who needs help.

Reset button...

Grand adventure out of no where after a massive series of coincidences where someone meets an old friend who needs help.

And repeat until series end.

...

This is how I remember every other classic Knight Rider Adventure to be.

Bah!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Seriously? I think i's great, what does Charlie Brooker have against it?

Well you can watch it here. The link is supposed to take you right the bit where they start talking about it.

But personally I just think it's so generic and bland it doesn't draw me in.

 

[Relayer1]

I've watched one and a half episodes. Series link's still saving them but really not interested.

Jr won't let me delete them, but doesn't seem in a hurry to watch them either...

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Yeah, so far we've taken almost all week to watch each episode and not really enjoyed any of them, so time to give up.

 

[Starkers]

Well as I'm at work I had to watch that with the subtiles on, so I may have missed something startling in the telling, but they seem to be having a go at the pilot for using well known tropes, well fair enough but hardly the only show to do that and you could probably make the same arguments about episodes of most shows.

But if it doesn't engage with you there's no way around that really. I can see the arguments about it being generic, but again I think most things are to a greater or lesser degree and we are only four episodes in, and I'd actually say the latest episode was the best (whilst last weeks may have been the worst). I can see where Guy's coming from as well, but at the moment they're still filling in back stories for the characters, so we're going to get long lost friends showing up. Four episodes in I think that's acceptable, if they're still doing it by the end of the series I may think differently.

 

[Relayer1]

Yeah, so far we've taken almost all week to watch each episode and not really enjoyed any of them, so time to give up.

Yeah, but the worrying thing is, I'm doing that with more and more shows. Merlin, Atlantis, Robin Hood, Grimm, Continuum, Sleepy Hollow, Falling Skies, Tomorrow People, loads more - the list goes on. Sometimes I've sat through several seasons before admitting I'm wasting my time.

I'm still 'in' on Revolution and Defiance, but can see me dumping them as well. I just don't seem to be enjoying the new shows anymore...

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Trouble is it feels like they had another Merlin/Atlantis on their hands and then just threw in a bit more sex and violence to make it an "Adult" show and it doesn't even live up to the quality of Merlin.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Yeah, so far we've taken almost all week to watch each episode and not really enjoyed any of them, so time to give up.

Yeah, but the worrying thing is, I'm doing that with more and more shows. Merlin, Atlantis, Robin Hood, Grimm, Continuum, Sleepy Hollow, Falling Skies, Tomorrow People, loads more - the list goes on. Sometimes I've sat through several seasons before admitting I'm wasting my time.

I'm still 'in' on Revolution and Defiance, but can see me dumping them as well. I just don't seem to be enjoying the new shows anymore...

Yeah, I know what you mean. I saw through all of Voyager and Enterprise, 5 seasons of Dexter, even caught up with the last 3 of Dexter on Netflix and I'll watch through shows I've already seen rather than watch a lot of new shows. I guess it's like Hollywood, they've got to the point where they think they've got a formula for success so everything becomes bland.

 

[Starkers]

I made it through most of Atlantis befre admitting to myself that I just didn't like it. I'll give most shows a chance at least but I jump ship far more quickly than I used to do.

I don't think The Musteteers was ever supposed to be a Saturday early evening show, or if it was it must have been retooled very early on in it's gestation.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Oh, I don't mean it was supposed to be but a little less and violence and it very much in the same vein as those shows.

Yeah, I'm the same. I'll give most shows a chance but I've got quicker to give up. Though I'm more likely to sit through more episodes of something if I can marathon it.

 

[Lonemagpie]

It would pass for an 8pm show, same as Atlantis would pass as a 6pm show.

They had a brief nip-slip this week, but it's still pretty fucking far from the likes of Da Vinci's Demons or Game Of Thrones in terms of including nudity or swearing.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Good News, Starkers. It's been picked up for a second series.

From The Telegraph

The Musketeers is to return for a second TV series, the BBC has confirmed.

The drama is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's 1844 novel, The Three Musketeers. Set in 17th-century Paris, it depicts the adventures of D'Artagnan (Luke Pasqualino), Athos (Tom Burke), Aramis (Santiago Cabrera) and Porthos (Howard Charles), a "crack team of highly trained soldiers" protecting King Louis XIII of France (Ryan Gage).

All four of the musketeers will return for series two. However, Peter Capaldi, who plays the villainous Cardinal Richelieu, is not expected to return due to his filming commitments on Doctor Who.



The controller of BBC One, Charlotte Moore, said: “Drama in 2014 has got off to a great start on BBC One and The Musketeers has really brought something fresh and new to the channel. I can't wait to see how things will develop in the next series."

 

[Starkers]

Yes, oddly someone posted this on the Who forum earlier (for obvious reasons).

 

[Starkers]

Not sure who's still watching but I thought this week's was probably the best episode so far. No mysterious person from one of the Musketeer's past (though we did learn a little bit more about Aramis) some proper intrigue, and I like how the Musketeers were actually on top of the plot from the get go rather than bumbling around like fools, it makes a refreshing change.

The cast were uniformly as excellent as always, the interplay between the four leads is really good, and although he didn't have a lot to do I love how Capaldi sweeps around the place with his big long cape like he's Darth Fricken Vader! Special mention to the King as well, his mardy schoolboy act was brilliant...I especially loved it when he just ran upstairs.

I can't beleive it took me most of the episode to recognise Tara Fitzgerald though!

 

[Lonemagpie]

It was OK this week, A Team quotes and all.

 

[Starkers]

Yes I wasn;t sure about the A-Team joke, though the painful payoff was amusing!

The amusing thing as well last night was that before The Musketeers I'd watched BSG Blood and Chrome. I honestly spent the first ten minutes thinking "Where do I know young Adama from?"

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I told Deckerd the main reason she's watching Musketeers was because she fancied Adama, I think I confused her.