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Carnival Row - New Amazon Prime Victorian Era Fantasy Series from The 4400 creator, Rene Echevariia

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On August 30 Amazon Prime will be releasing Carnival Row, a new fantasy series set in a Victorian London where humans live alongside fantasy creatures. The story will focus on a relationship between a human played by Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Carribean's Orlando Bloom, and a fairy played Suicide Squad and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets' Cara Delevigne.
The show is created by Rene Echevarria, who spent time as a writer for both Star Trek: TNG and DS9, before co-creating The 4400, and is based on a spec script written by Pacific Rim writer Travis Beacham back in 2005. Beacham and Echevarria will serve as Executive Producers, with Echevarria as showrunner.
Here's the official description from the show's Amazon page:
Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne star in Carnival Row, a Victorian fantasy world filled with mythological immigrant creatures. Feared by humans, they are forbidden to live, love, or fly with freedom. But even in darkness, hope lives, as a human detective and a faerie rekindle a dangerous affair. The city's uneasy peace collapses when a string of murders reveals a monster no one could imagine.
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The article on Deadline announcing the series included a bit more detail, including the fact that the fantasy creatures are all immigrants to London, and that the series will deal with immigration issues.
The cast, according to Wikipedia:
Main:
Orlando Bloom as Rycroft Philostrate
Cara Delevingne as Vignette Stonemoss
David Gyasi as Agreus
Tamzin Merchant as Imogen Spurnrose
Andrew Gower as Ezra Spurnrose
Indira Varma as Tourmaline
Arty Fourshan as Jonah Breaskspear
Indira Varma as Piety Breakspear
Jared Harris as Absalom Breakspear
Simon McBurney as Runyan Millworthy

Recurring:
Alice Krige as The Haruspex
Ariyon Bakare as Darius
Maeve Dermody as Portia Fyfe
Jamie Harris as Sergeant Dombey
Scott Reid as Quill
Anna Rust as Fleury
Sinead Phelps as Jenila

We've gotten two teasers so far:
Philo and Vignette:
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Welcome to Carnival Row
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I am very curious about this one, this has a good team behind the camera, Echvarria wrote some great Star Trek episodes and I loved The 400, and I loved Pacific Rim. Most of the cast that I know is good to great.
The premise also sounds really cool, and I love the Victorian era.
 
Looks like it could be good and it has a terrific cast. That said, are you sure Indira Varma is playing two different characters? That seems weird.

When I first saw the thread title, I thought HBO finally revived Carnivàle...alas, no such luck...
 
Oops, no it was a mistake. I can't believe I missed that, I even made sure to look over the thread to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. I guess I need to look closer next time.
Indira Varma is Piety Breakspear, and Karla Crome is Tourmaline.
 
If they need a theme song Lindsay Buckingham has a melody already, they just need to swap in the title.
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They just released two new featurettes that actually give us a surprisingly detailed look at the series, showing us the backstories of Vignette and Rycroft aka Philo, from their own perspectives.

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Philo's story
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I was already very interested in this, just from the descriptions, but now I'm honestly excited for it, it looks awesome.
 
Seems kinda reminiscent of China Meiville's Bas-Lag universe, but maybe any steampunk fantasy comes across like that.
 
This looks very interesting. I’m intrigued. Definitely will be checking this out when it drops.
 
The creature effects in this are pretty impressive, there were actually times during the videos I couldn't tell what was CGI and what was makeup/prosthetics.
It's kind of a shame the new character videos came out in the midst of all of the other big SDCC trailers, it seems to have been kind of overshadowed but the others.
 
New full trailer:
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I don't know why I didn't think of this before and I'm sure this is just a coincidence, but between the forbidden love between two species and the mythological creatures who are primarily ram-horned and fairy-winged, I'm reminded of Saga. Hopefully, some day, that incredible series will finally be adapted into a series.
 
Watched the first episode this morning and really enjoyed it.
The world building was the most interesting part, it seems to be a pretty well thought out and developed world.
Most of the characters seem like they'll be pretty interesting to follow.
I know a lot of people have complained about Cara Delevingne's acting in Suicide Squad and Valerian, but I thought she actually did a pretty good job here. The rest of the cast was good too.
I was really surprised to see the Unseelie Jack case resolved so quick since I had expected that to be the big mystery for the whole season. What the guy who turned out to be Jack said and the very last scene make it clear that this is not the case, and that whatever is going is clearly bigger than a human killing fae folk.
 
I probably won't be getting to this until Sunday at the earliest. The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance takes priority.

Doesn't help any that both A.V. Club and io9 were unkind in their reviews. I'll still give it a try, but cautiously so.
 
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Looks gray and ugly (the default visual tone for the Czech Republic, I guess), not interested in a serial killer story as a hook for a genre show, don't believe Orlando's a good enough actor to co-anchor a series, and even io9 calls it "just dull" = easy pass.

The Nth Doctor said:
When I first saw the thread title, I thought HBO finally revived Carnivàle...alas, no such luck...
Click to expand...
And just imagine how Carnivàle would have been so much b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r more commercial if its first season had focused on a serial killer! :p :rolleyes:
 
There's a lot more to it than just looking for the serial killer. That's just one of several story lines going throughout the first episode at least.
If the end of episode one is any indication, it's going to be more hunting a monster than looking for a serial killer, and there are hints that there's even more going on than just that.
 
Finished it. I really enjoyed it. I figured what was going on by episode 4 but I confess it took me until near the end to figure out who the culprit was, which was rather pathetic considering who the actor/actress was. :)
Poor Orlando. Not only is he half-Fae but he's also half Belter. :)
 
I read somewhere this started off as a Guillermo Del Toro passion project, which makes a lot of sense. Some good Victorian/Edwardian steampunky fantasy worldbuilding but feel the show is trying to do a lot of different narrative/concept things at the same time and becomes diluted as a result. The two leads are ok (Delevigne is better than expected) though both have accents that hinder performance. The supporting cast is far more interesting: Agreus & Imogen & Ezra, Afissa the housemaid, Tourmaline, Sophie & Jonah. If there is a S2 I suspect they will have much larger roles.
 
Watched episode 2: Aisling, this morning.
-I'm surprised they had Vignette leave the Spurnroses so early. I guess they just used her working for them to introduce them to the show. Her working for the Fae gang, seems like it'll be a lot more interesting, so I'm fine with it.
-Wow, Piety definitely took an interesting turn in this episode. I'm very curious to see what she's up to.
-Not quite sure what to make of Imogen inviting Agreus to meet her. I'm assuming she's up to something.
 
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