The end of August 2019 saw Amazon Prime Video release new fantasy TV series Carnival Row, but it’s had a somewhat divided reception. Film and television review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes reveals that, while critics have only given it 54%, the audience score is at 88%.
The critics have commented on Rotten Tomatoes that the show is ‘Beautiful, but bloated,’ going on to say: ‘Carnival Row boasts meticulously crafted mythology and luscious world building—unfortunately its story of haves and have nots simply has too much going on to create anything cohesive.’
Despite reviews from major publications such as the New York Times saying that Carnival Row ‘reanimates bits and pieces from different branches of the fantasy genre into a glum and lumbering beast’, the show made the top series on TV Time’s updated list of Shows on the Rise. This list makes use of data from the app’s global users – which go into the millions – to generate its results.
The show stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, and has received an 8.1 rating on Imdb, which is based off almost 7000 ratings. Viewers on Twitter were somewhat mixed in their responses, with some agreeing that it took some time to get into it. One user commented: ‘It’s not bad, starts a little slow’, while another said similar: ‘It’s decent but a little boring at first.’ But while one person said ‘I have only heard bad things’, another said after watching it: ‘Actually really liked it.’ A particularly keen viewer tweeted: ‘Carnival Row as the new Game of thrones? [sic]’.
Carnival Row depicts a world where the government turns a blind eye to lower class citizens who die, and investigator Rycroft Philostrate is the only one who works to stop the murders and attempt to keep peace in the community. However, a faerie refugee called Vignette Stonemoss turns up and causes Philo to dredge up a painful past.
Orlando Bloom plays Philo, the half blood inspector of the Burgue Constabulary looking into the dark conspiracy within the city. Meanwhile, Cara Delevigne plays the fae Vignette Stonemoss, who is Philo’s lover and believed him to be dead.
