Friday, January 8, 2016

TV Binge Review: Vikings


At the beginning of December, my wife convinced me to watch Vikings seasons 1-3 with her. She had seen some episodes before and enjoyed it and she said that I would absolutely love the series. I was skeptical at first, but I ended up watching the entirety of the first three seasons with her in the span of just a few weeks. I would call that a TV binge.

The premise of the show doesn't sound promising. A story about vikings and it is on the History Channel? It sounded like it would be slow and boring. Now, there certainly are some episodes are a better than others. Season finales are always the best. But this is an intriguing, violent, dramatic, and addicting show. Vikings has all the drama of A Game of Thrones, but it is also based on history.

Now, I said based on history because there are have to be things that the writers made up or embellished. There are some really good historians, but I mean...come on. The history is good though. I like that I can go and learn more about these characters, all of whom were real people in history. While watching I often did just that. I would stop after an episode and look things up about Ragnar Lothbrook. I was especially interested about the Siege of Paris. So much so that I research whether there were any war games that covered that siege. Unfortunately, there are not.

There have been several shows that draw from historical events for their plots. The Tudors and Rome both come to mind. But the problem with those shows is the amount of unnecessary sex and nudity they include to keep the males in their audiences "interested." There certainly was some scenes that my wife and I fast forwarded through, but I never felt like they were gratuitous like scenes in A Game of Thrones often are. Each scene had a purpose.

I really enjoyed binging on this show. It certainly is a good one for a binge. I am excited to watch season 4, but I may have to wait a while before it becomes available as I do not have cable TV. We watched seasons 1-3 on Hulu by the way.

I would give each season the following ratings:
  • Season 1 = 3 stars
  • Season 2 = 4 stars
  • Season 3 = 5 stars

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