Amazon's Carnival Row is grim, gory and an exhaustingly self-serious bore

Paste Magazine

"You’d think that if someone was going to name the principal characters of their Victorian-esque fae-meets-Ripper television series things like Vignette Stonemoss and Rycroft Philostrate and Absalom Breakspear and Tourmaline, they’d be in on the joke," says Alexis Gunderson. Vignette! Philostrate! Tourmaline!! I mean, okay, sure, there’s the Dickensian aspect, but all the same, these are just objectively funny names. Alas, Carnival Row has no interest in its own punchline. Starring Cara Delevingne as a faerie refugee from a mythical realm ravaged by war, and Orlando Bloom (his own name being a Dickens castoff) as the human detective with a terrible secret she fell in love with back when they were both starry-eyed soldiers, Amazon Prime’s new allegorical steampunk fantasy is grim, gory, and exhaustingly self-serious. This is a shame, as both Delevingne and Bloom—hell, as everyone in the sprawling cast, which includes Jared Harris, Indira Varma, David Gyasi and Carla Krome in key roles—are putting in good work, and deserve a show equal to their efforts. But just as Carnival Row can’t seem to find a sense of humor about its inherent goofiness, its allegorical narrative struggles to rise above the banal. Faerish (the show’s term) refugees struggling to assimilate into or just survive in the increasingly hostile human city they’ve sought asylum in should be ripe for nuanced storytelling, and acutely relevant to the shameful anti-refugee moment that both the U.S. and the U.K. are currently mired in."

ALSO:

• The preposterous character names are everything wrong with Carnival Row: "I love fantasy, but I'll be the first to admit the genre has produced some pretty terrible proper nouns over the years," says Jeva Lange. "American Gods' eye-roll-inducing 'Shadow Moon.' Dungeons & Dragons' unnecessary 'Drizzt Do'Urden.' The Baroque Cycle's unpronounceable 'Qwghlm' (gesundheit?). And don't forget about the spectacularly-named minor character in George R.R. Martin's A Storm of Swords, 'Dickon Manwoody.' Carnival Row, Amazon's first of several big bets on fantasy television in the wake of Game of Thrones, contributes heartily to this tradition: Orlando Bloom stars as the police detective Rycroft 'Philo' Philostrate opposite Cara Delevingne's refugee faerie, Vignette Stonemoss. But the show's silly names are also indicative of something more than just poor judgment in the writers' room; they're evidence of its own shaky, shallow conceit. While Carnival Row aims to be the next big thing in fantasy, the result, sadly, is a lot of whimsical empty gestures."
• Carnival Row isn't the new Game of Thrones: "In sheer investment, at least, the comparison proves apt; all the prosthetic horns and CGI fairy wings and London-but-not-really cityscapes cannot have come cheap," says Alison Herman. "But Game of Thrones didn’t distinguish itself on expenditure alone; like George R.R. Martin’s books before it, the show stood out for exhibiting self-awareness in a genre hidebound by stale tropes. Carnival Row displays no similar appetite for subversion, as is its prerogative. But the resulting, straightforward story is less exciting for it—and less likely to satisfy Amazon higher-ups’ appetite for a show that fills Thrones’ cultural footprint, not just its broadest outlines."
• Carnival Row tries to be too many things at once: "Judging by the series’ first trailer and first few episodes, most audiences will come away from Amazon’s Carnival Row thinking that they’re watching a fantastical version of a neo-noir story like Chinatown," says Andrew Husband. '(Blade Runner for people who prefer J. R. R. Tolkien over Philip K. Dick.) And they’re not wrong. Co-creator Travis Beacham adapted the show from his own unproduced film script, A Killing on Carnival Row — the title of which sounds like something taken straight out of the noir genre playbook. But when viewers make it to the third episode, however, this particular mashup flies out the window and crashes violently onto the street below."
• Carnival Row is less than the sum of its parts, despite its ambition: "Were Carnival Row able to juggle all these gradually intertwining strands while engaging with what feels necessary and compelling about this world, there would be more reason for viewers to become involved," says Steve Greene. "As it stands though, this season plays out more a as fantasy story grafted onto a political allegory rather than a tale that flows from these particular characters’ experiences in way that says something meaningful about How We Live Now."
• Carnival Row has a lot of great characters, but not enough time to service them all: "Carnival Row is bursting at the seams with intriguing characters and personalities, and it’s somewhat uneven in its distribution of how much time we spend with each," says Kaila Hale-Stern. "Some characters seem to idle for episodes before we get back to their action, but the fact that we care about what’s happening with them is encouraging. The show is overstuffed, yet I much prefer to have its surfeit of ideas rather than a flimsy backdrop where one-dimensional people roam. This universe is fully populated, with gorgeous costuming, creature design, and sets both lavish and grimy, and it’s easy to become fully immersed."
• Carnival Row would've been better off it went completely off the rails: "Carnival Row has the makings of what should be an absolute bonkers show," says Danette Chavez, "but in its first season, it struggles to rise above being merely strange and unwieldy."
• Carnival Row is at its best when it isn't copying Game of Thrones
• Was it difficult for Cara Delevinge to put herself in Carnival Row's world?: "In this case it’s definitely harder," she says. "You have to really know everything you possibly can to really be able to immerse yourself in a world. And I guess I may be a child like this, but when I’m in it, I really just don’t think of anything."