Turn on HBO’s newest Game of Thrones spinoff, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and you might be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled not into Westeros, but into an old-fashioned television Western. Episode one begins with a burial. A very tall young man, the squire Dunk (Peter Claffey), lays his master, …
Read More »Bodice and Doublet
Rumplestiltskin: the Dark Alchemist of ‘Once Upon a Time’
Few characters in modern fantasy television have burned as brightly—or fallen as hard—as Once Upon a Time’s Rumplestiltskin. When the ABC fantasy series debuted in 2011, the show introduced a sorcerer so layered, so unpredictable, so alchemically compelling that he virtually redefined what a fairy-tale villain could be. Part of …
Read More »Robin Hood: A Journey Through the Ages
Robin Hood has returned to our screens With a brand-new series from the streaming service MGM+. Once again, the arrows rain down from Sherwood Forest. This one is a grounded, origin-tilted retelling set in the tense years after the Norman Conquest. So what is it about the legend of Sir …
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