Oct. 09--Thanks to "Game of Thrones," television just can't get enough of the Middle Ages. Those flickering smoky interiors, enormous woolly coats and bloody, ax-heavy battles; the remarkable d飯lletage, the picaresque foliage and mud. Sometimes there's magic, sometimes there isn't, but, by gosh, there's always plenty of bloody hacking and mud.
Certainly "The Last Kingdom," the BBC drama that premieres Saturday and is based on the first book of Bernard Cornwell's "Saxon Tales," checks all these boxes in short order.
Don't let the exposition-heavy first episode fool you; this may be a sword 'n' longboat epic with a handsome hero at its heart, but as adapted by Stephen Butchard, it subtly grows more complex with each passing hour until that hero becomes, to a certain extent, a supporting player in the far more dramatic epic of history.
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"The Last Kingdom" opens in 9th century Northumbria, as the sails of those pernicious Danes have just come in sight much to the consternation of the local Saxon prince. He is right to be concerned; among many subsequent events (which I will not spoil here), his youngest son, Uhtred, is taken prisoner by the warlord Earl Ragnar (Peter Gantzler).
Despite having seen things no child should ever see, Uhtred quickly adapts to his new life. Initially guided by the blind elder Ravn (Rutger Hauer), he is soon a brave, kindhearted and exceptionally handsome man played by Alexander Dreymon. Ah, but murderous fate intervenes once again, and soon Uhtred finds himself hunted by both Danes and Saxons, in search of revenge and the return of his initial ancestral home.
He is joined by his childhood friend turned lover, Brida (Emily Cox), also a Saxon captive turned happy Dane, and together they have many adventures that lead them, by the third episode, to the last Saxon stronghold, Wessex.
There they meet Prince, then King, Alfred (David Dawson), and Uhtred's tale joins with England's to make "The Last Kingdom" a gratifyingly shaded story of not just clashing cultures but the evolving nature of leadership and the stutter-step progression of civilization.
Kings, real or fictional, are rarely the heroes of any tale; the good ones are either deposed or absent, leaving scheming princes in their stead. The rest are most usually varying degrees of stupid, awful or both, men to be assassinated or worked around.
Alfred is introduced in a familiar way; the weedy brother of a heroic king, he has a reputation for adultery and initially seems frail and bloodless, overly attached to the church and the written word.
But this man, with his nervous stomach and quiet mien, is King Alfred the Great, the beloved British monarch who eschewed personal glory for superior strategy. Much of which, "The Last Kingdom" posits, was built around insider information provided by Uhtred.
Chiseled and wide-eyed, Dreymon makes it easy to root for Uhtred, which is important. But it's Dawson's increasingly powerful performance that mesmerizes.
By the fourth episode, his Alfred is the vibrant center of whatever scene he is in. He is not kind, this new monarch, but he is resolute and far-sighted, a reminder of how rare it is, even with all the royalty currently occupying television, to see a kingly king.
He and Uhtred clash for many reasons, and each uses the other for a larger goal, but they also slowly earn each other's respect. This is not a terribly new plot device, but where other shows use the personal to symbolize the political, "The Last Kingdom" offers us a rare glimpse at both.
mary.mcnamara@latimes.com
