Well, after an odd title-card sequence that just feels cheap instead of filming what they're explaining to us while the Queen crowns the new King, and then the story starts in earnest. But right off the bat, they've changed the story. For the book readers, remember how the 4 kids witnessed the murder as they were in the woods playing with a dog? This set the scene for what was to come and introduced us to the 4 characters who would be the focal points of the story. Well, they keep the murder, but they for some unexplained reason only have Merthin and Ralph witness it as they're swordfighting. Already, this throws things off-kilter.
And there was another scene I was really looking forward to seeing that they've completely changed. In the book, it's the scene with Gwenda and her family in the Kingsbridge Cathedral with her father telling her to steal something, introducing us both at once to these characters and giving us a connection into the past in showing us the majesty of the Chathedral that had been built. Here it's been inexplicably changed to her stealing a boot from one of the people who were hanged, which frankly has less of an impact in terms of scene setting.
However, as far as those changes go, it's actually the least of its problems. Everything about it feels cheaper. I don't find the cast to be very good, although the acting does seem to be better in some places than Pillars, but on the whole, I feel it's far less engaging than Pillars was. I know they're trying, but the script is a mess and doesn't give them much to work with. In terms of plotting and pacing, if you thought Pillars was bad in that area, it's far worse here to the point that it's everywhere. I don't see how those who haven't read the book are going to be able to follow this. As it is, the first episode spent far too much time on Caris and a number of secondary characters, such as Brother Joseph played by David Bradley aka Argus Filch who was the most entertaining in this episode, and not enough time on characters like Merthin, who considering he's a descendant of Tom's from Pillars, I thought would have a better introduction, but he's treated like a footnote in this. As I mentioned, the pacing is terrible, so much so that it's hard to know who's who, and as a result, some scenes lack impact, such as the reveal that Caris is to be married to Elfric, who up until that point had only been in one other short scene with one speaking line. The reveal falls flat because we don't adequately know who he is.
Anyway, yeah, not very impressed with this so far, but I'll be sticking to it to see if it improves.
