Having just finished watching Episode 1.8 of Atlantis "The Furies", I feel there is little hope for this drama series.
Being an ardent fan of "Merlin, I expected "Atlantis" to be a 21st century make-over on numerous Greek myths and legends. Who is going to dispute why those stories came into being? The BBC certainly needed to fill the slot lately occupied by Merlin, a series that was a runaway success for 5 seasons. So "Atlantis" was obviously to be "Son of Merlin".
Jack Donnelly, Mark Addy, Robert Emms, Jemima Rooper, Sarah Parish and Juliet Stevenson chosen for the main roles are all good actors and acquit themselves well. The sets and scenery in Morocco are well done and are reasonably convincing. Even the production team itself includes people that had worked on "Merlin". With that in place it is hard to see how it could go wrong.
However one thing rather oddly missing is story. The episode storyboard is badly paced and where were the script writers? Dialogue is painful and sometimes frankly embarrassing. Incidental characters are well just incidental and never developed further. The pace of each episode is leaden, interspersed with the odd-bit of brawling. You would get to see more action if on you stood outside any bar at the weekend than ever you would see in Atlantis.
The episodes have teetered from almost passable to the damn-right boring. After struggling to watch the 8th episode I was left with just one question "Why did they bother making it"? I gather the BBC intend to make a second series. Can I humbly suggest that they also hire some script writers and story tellers?
Being an ardent fan of "Merlin, I expected "Atlantis" to be a 21st century make-over on numerous Greek myths and legends. Who is going to dispute why those stories came into being? The BBC certainly needed to fill the slot lately occupied by Merlin, a series that was a runaway success for 5 seasons. So "Atlantis" was obviously to be "Son of Merlin".
Jack Donnelly, Mark Addy, Robert Emms, Jemima Rooper, Sarah Parish and Juliet Stevenson chosen for the main roles are all good actors and acquit themselves well. The sets and scenery in Morocco are well done and are reasonably convincing. Even the production team itself includes people that had worked on "Merlin". With that in place it is hard to see how it could go wrong.
However one thing rather oddly missing is story. The episode storyboard is badly paced and where were the script writers? Dialogue is painful and sometimes frankly embarrassing. Incidental characters are well just incidental and never developed further. The pace of each episode is leaden, interspersed with the odd-bit of brawling. You would get to see more action if on you stood outside any bar at the weekend than ever you would see in Atlantis.
The episodes have teetered from almost passable to the damn-right boring. After struggling to watch the 8th episode I was left with just one question "Why did they bother making it"? I gather the BBC intend to make a second series. Can I humbly suggest that they also hire some script writers and story tellers?