The Cutprice Guignol

I know the title of this post looks dramatic and clickbait-y, but I really just wanted to give anyone who’s been following my Vikings recaps an update on why I won’t be covering the show any longer.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed from my previous reviews, Vikings has become a hell of a slog to watch and write about recently. And that’s a real shame, because I can firmly say that Vikings is one of my favourite shows of the last ten years. Those first few seasons, those are just a truly fantastic example of what storytelling on TV can look like – intelligent, dense, patient, and with a laser-focus on the characters who matter. Spanning decades and generations, it’s a truly ambitious run, and I will always love it and always respect it.

But there comes a point where you have to admit that a show you once loved just isn’t up to scratch any longer, and that time has come for Vikings, as far as I’m concerned. I feel like I’ve been yelling, week after week, into a void, with the same complaints every single time – the writing is poor, the cast too scattered, the acting often terrible, the stories uncompelling and repetitive. There are some shows that I enjoy reviewing because they’re so terrible – American Horror Story, for one – but usually, they at least offer a varied range of awfulness for me to point and laugh at. Vikings is just the same thing, week after week, and the bad same thing at that. There’s no fun in writing about it for me, and I doubt there’s a lot of fun for people reading similair complaints over and over again, either.

I don’t like dropping a show half-way through a season, but honestly, I’ve run out of time and patience for this show, and writing about it just seems like a chore. This blog is a fun place for me to come to and spout off my opinions about things I find interesting, and Vikings just doesn’t fall into that category any longer.

So, yeah, that’s the end of my Vikings recaps for the forseeable future. My partner is recapping the show on Cult of Whatever, and I would recommend hitting up his recaps over there if you’re looking for someone else as exasperated with the show as I am. Thanks so much to those who’ve been reading my recaps so far – you can catch up on the lot of them right here, if you’re so inclined. If you want to keep up with my other recapping projects, hop on over to my Riverdale reviews, my Doctor Who recaps, or my look at the first Harry Potter book. And feel free to check out my other blog, No But Listen, for more of my work.