Just watched the premiere - it's rather entertaining even though it does accelerate through the latter portions of Romeo and Juliet at absolutely shocking speed in the first twenty minutes, though dwelling on Rosaline and, to a lesser extent Benvolio.
That said, Lashana Lynch a Rosaline and Zuleikha Robinson as the now named Lady Giuliana Capulet are the stand-outs here. And the twist at the end, that the Capulets (or, at least, Giuliana) are harboring the presumed dead Paris, Count of Mantua, for reasons unknown is genuinely interesting.
It does seem a bit like those assignments at school when you finished the novel and were then asked to write a story about what happened next - but more than an amateur hypothesis, there is the feel of a genuine sequel, though without the dreary iambic pentameter and an overdose of 'sweet Rosaline' and 'fair Verona' and the promise of an invasion or siege by either Venice, Milan or the Papal State coming by seasons end.
That said, Lashana Lynch a Rosaline and Zuleikha Robinson as the now named Lady Giuliana Capulet are the stand-outs here. And the twist at the end, that the Capulets (or, at least, Giuliana) are harboring the presumed dead Paris, Count of Mantua, for reasons unknown is genuinely interesting.
It does seem a bit like those assignments at school when you finished the novel and were then asked to write a story about what happened next - but more than an amateur hypothesis, there is the feel of a genuine sequel, though without the dreary iambic pentameter and an overdose of 'sweet Rosaline' and 'fair Verona' and the promise of an invasion or siege by either Venice, Milan or the Papal State coming by seasons end.
