9. The second worst episode of The Winter King is Episode 6
The Winter King had a bad habit of looking at the twists and turns of Bernard Cornwell’s books, asking itself, “What’s the lamest way to adapt these?” and then doing that. In particular, it tended to introduce important characters way too early, I’m guessing because it was scared that if we weren’t spending time with characters whose names we recognized, we would watch something else. Irony’s ironic like that.
And so we get messes like Episode 6, which introduces us to Guinevere, an important figure from the Arthurian legend. In the books, Arthur first meets Guinevere at a dance meat to celebrate his engagement to Ceinwyn, the daughter of a lord whose alliance he is trying to secure. In the second Arthur sees her, it’s clear that all of his plans are out the window. He falls hard, alliance be damned. That’s the power of love.
For some impenetrable reason, Episode 6 decides to have Arthur and Guinevere meet cute beforehand near a picturesque lake, meaning that all the subsequent events with Ceinwyn lose all semblance of tension. And this isn’t the only time the show does this. For example…
8. The third worst episode of The Winter King is Episode 1
The first episode of The Winter King has an identity problem. In the books, the main character is Derfel, a young pagan who becomes a warrior in Arthur’s service. In fact, neither Arthur nor Merlin turn up until fairly deep into books. On the show, Derfel does get a decent amount of screentime, and is ably played by Stuart Campbell. But the producers were clearly uncomfortable with giving a little-known character like him the spotlight. Instead of waiting for Arthur and Merlin to make their (fantastic and memorable) entrances from the books, they’re put center stage in the first episode.
This results in a premiere episode that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to do with itself. We need focus, but instead we have sprawl. We need to identify with the characters, but instead we struggle to keep up with the introductions. We need to build momentum, but instead we have filler. It just doesn’t work.
If viewers chose to jump ship after this first episode, I wouldn’t blame them. Happily, these are the only three episodes of the show I consider outright bad. That’s not the greatest average, but at least I can watch the rest of these without bursting a blood vessel: