The Last Kingdom Review

The Last Kingdom is a plainly made, consistently entertaining historical adventure that never had the money of its obvious comparison and made a virtue of that. The battles are small and muddy and convincing, the politics of Wessex, Mercia and the Danelaw are followed with real care across five seasons and a film, and Alexander Dreymon's Uhtred is a proper old fashioned hero, brave and stupid and loyal in the wrong directions.

David Dawson's Alfred, sickly and cunning and devout, is the series' best performance and its loss is felt in the later seasons. The show is honest about the brutality of the age without wallowing. The weaknesses are structural: Uhtred's cycle of losing and regaining his birthright repeats, the supporting cast turns over too quickly to build attachment, and the dialogue settles for functional where Cornwell's prose has bite. It is dependable rather than great, and there is something to be said for five seasons of dependable.