This article comes fromDen of Geek UK.
Warning: contains mild spoilers for season one.
As we never stop hearing, were living in a golden age of television.
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From a critics point of view, this is a bit of a mixed blessing.
And that is a key problem with the History channelsVikings.
It begins with the History channel.
Way to cull your audience.
Then theres the topic ofVikingsitself.
Certainly the marketing of the show does little to suggest otherwise.
But this is simply not the case.
To present it that way would be much akin to saying the same thing about theLord Of The Ringsfilms.
Which is where the series really takes off.
While a devastating warrior, he wants more for his people than an unstable life of parasitic raiding.
And he sees those the Vikings thieve from as more than weak cultures ripe for easy pickings.
His true strength isnt in his arm but in his clever, curious, and questioning mind.
The fighting is close-quarters and quickly over.
Instead, the real action is happening back in the Viking camp and in Ecberts court.
The show supplements the family drama angle by giving Ragnar a foil in the true sense.
But a foil is not an antagonist.
A foil is meant to reveal and emphasise the traits of another usually the main character.
While Judith suffers, that suffering is limited by the mercy of king Ecbert.
In the end, Kwenthrith and her child have no such protection and pay a much higher price.
These women largely overturn our views of what medieval womanhood must look like.
Nor are these women chaste.
Hirsts Vikings have a more open-minded view of sexuality across the board than do his Christians.
Martial infidelity itself is morally ambiguous on the Viking side.
The show is worth watching for the Viking women alone.
But thats hardly the only reason.
Sadly, it is not what one would expect from something called the History ChannelsVikings.
But it should be.
