 I've returned to talk about a series that no one seems to remember. Yeah, like, do you remember Carnival Row? Like, it first came out in 2019, and it did make some waves when it released, like, Amazon pushed it fairly hard in marketing, and people did talk about it, but it just didn't really blow up or anything. And I did talk about it a bit in real life, like, I recommended it to people, some of whom watched it and a lot of whom didn't. But I don't think I really talked about it online. You know, I didn't do a video on it or anything like that. And so, the show was just kind of forgotten, and I think a lot of people just figured it was canceled after the first season. And I don't blame you for thinking that, but no, that's not what happened. There were some serious production problems, basically, and those problems were exacerbated by COVID, which led to very, very long delays. And eventually, before season two came out, Amazon just said, okay, we're canceling this. Like, the first season was moderately successful, but this is just hemorrhaging money, and it's not bringing in that much. And long story short, there were three and a half years between season one and season two. Although, hearing that, you may think that because it was canceled early season two ends on, like, a cliffhanger or something. But no, it does have an actual ending. Like, I don't know exactly when they got noticed they were canceled. They clearly had enough time to write a proper ending here. And after having watched the entire show, like, I rewatched season one right before season two came out, and then I watched season two, which ended not that long ago. And having watched the whole thing, I feel comfortable saying that you people slept on this show. This is really good. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Now before I go farther, I do just want to ask you all, please rate the video, comment, and subscribe. I normally save that for the end, but, like, just, I don't know, do it now. Do it now. Spread this video around. Share it. I need the views, but yeah. So Carnival Row, it's genuinely a really good show, and I don't know if I've seen anybody really hate it, but I haven't seen that many people praise it, and I think that's a shame. Like, it's genuinely just good. Like, for starters, it is an original fantasy television series. It's original fantasy. Like, do you hear that? It's not an adaptation of a book. It's not a reboot of an old movie. It's not a remake of anything else. It is an original fantasy series. How often do you see that? Like, almost never nowadays. Like, it's an original fantasy series with a decent budget. Like, this was a risk, and unfortunately it seems like it didn't pay off, which means Amazon will probably take fewer risks like this in the future, but still, it was a risk. And honestly, the fact that it's original might be what kept it from being popular. Like, if you remember when Rings of Power came out not that long ago, half the fucking marketing for that show was just middle-aged white dudes with no jawline crying about how it would be the end of civilization before it even came out, and then after it came out, they said, see, civilization is ending. It's not just a very meh show, which isn't all that good. No, no, civilization is actually ending, and like, that just drew more and more attention to it and helped it become like a huge success for Amazon. Like, Carnival Road didn't have that, is what I'm saying. And so, by not having that feedback loop of like, arguing and complaining and all that, I think that really just kept it from reaching the level of success that it deserved. This show seems really simple and surface level at first, and I mean that in multiple ways. I mean like, the story, the characters, the themes, even the worlds to an extent. They all seem really, really simple at first, but they hide surprising depth. Like I mean that, like after the first like, three or four episodes, you start to realize like, oh, okay, there's much more to this than it seemed at first. Like I said, this show does have a pretty decent budget, and it shines through. I mean, the sets are varied and look fantastic. The costumes are all generally really good. They were able to pay for some good high profile actors like Jared Harris and Orlando Bloom. Even the effects are 95% of the time. The effects are really good. The other 5% is just a little bit iffy with the CGI, but those are over pretty quick, so I don't mind that much. Like, this whole setting, it feels like another world, and it is another world. But it really feels like one. Whether they're in a city or a forest or the desert, it feels familiar, it feels kind of similar to our world, but you can just tell that it's not. And that's a really impressive feat that they were able to pull off. And since it's only two seasons long, which I believe it's 18 episodes altogether, the show is pretty short, so it's not a huge time commitment. You know, if you're somebody that likes picking up new TV shows, but you're feeling a little iffy about picking up another one that is like 40 to 60 hours long, and you don't even enjoy a lot of those hours, like this one's much shorter, and as a result, the story doesn't really meander or anything as much. Like it's, I don't know, it's just not a huge commitment, so that's a plus. But I've rambled on enough about how I actually like this show. What is it about? You know, what's the actual story here? And just fair warning, there will be some minor spoilers throughout, like nothing major, but just be aware that there will be some. It's about this city or city state, I should say, called the Berg, not Berg, the Berg. And it seems to be based on like 19th century London, you know, industrialism is in full swing, colonialism is at its height. Just things like that, you know, it feels like London in late 19th century. It's not like a direct parallel, but it just feels that way. And anyways, not long before the story began, the Berg got into a war over some colonies. The Berg is mostly dominated by humans, and there's another country called the Pact, which is a weird name for a country, but whatever. And both of them basically were at war over colonies, specifically colonies in Tirnanok, which is the home of the Pixies. And long story short, the Berg lost that war, and so they've abandoned all their colonies. They brought everybody back. But you see from the first scene of the show, all the destruction that has happened in Tirnanok, and so a whole bunch of people are fleeing the country as refugees and a whole bunch of them wind up in the Berg, including a woman named Vignette, who is played by Cara Deleving. Meanwhile, a cop in the Berg named Philo, played by Orlando Bloom, is investigating a really nasty string of serial killings. And as he investigates them, they seem to tie into political concerns and stuff. I don't feel like saying more than that, but they do tie into something much bigger than just a crazy person killing people. And there's also a third storyline, which like those first two intersect pretty early on. But the third storyline is about this aristocratic young girl named Imogen, who basically forms a relationship with a fawn named Agraeus, and just their budding relationship as that happens, which it's not a bad storyline, but it really does not intersect with the main one until season two. So I don't know that that didn't really bother me on my first watch, but on rewatch it annoyed me. Now, this world does have some magic, not a whole lot. We'll get more into that later. But it mostly has like different races other than humans. You know, like there are humans and there's pixies who are basically just people with wings that can fly. And then there's fawns who are usually called pucks in the show. Not sure why, but you know, they have like horns and goat legs and a couple other smaller races as well. But those two are the two biggest fey races by a huge margin and the burg being mostly human and suddenly getting an influx of immigrants and refugees. A lot of ethno-nationalists are really upset about all the fey coming in and they're complaining about stuff like, oh, they're stealing our jobs. They're savages. They're corrupting our culture. They're going after our women, et cetera. And sometimes they're very violence. Like, and these are real issues that are in regards to racism. I can't talk today. And in regards to racism, these are real issues that really do happen in the real world. Like with Imogen and Negraeus' relationship. And like, again, I know that's a minor spoiler, but it's hard to talk about either of them without going into it. And I don't feel like dancing around the subject when it's pretty obvious what's going to happen. But when the two of them form a relationship, it's scandalous and people are upset about it. And they look at Agraeus as being like a sexual predator who's coming after their women. And again, that is a thing that happens in real life, like even in consensual adults, interracial relationships. Like I don't think it's a coincidence that Imogen is played by a white woman and Agraeus is played by a black man. Like that's a real thing that people would get upset about in the real world. And they would say things like, okay, black men are violent sexual predators because they dare to have a consensual relationship with a white woman. Like, I think they knew what they were doing when they did that. They're referencing that sort of thing. Now you might think upon hearing that racism is a big theme in this show and how racism is bad. You might think it's some liberal feel good bullshit about how, oh, okay, just say, just stop being racism, you know, and just be nice to people of other races and everything will be solved all on its own. But no, it's actually not like that. It's very critical of like the systems that allow racism to exist. Like, for example, it does mention in the first episode that they are not allowed to vote. It's restricted just to men and or excuse me, it's restricted just to humans, possibly just to male humans. I'm not totally sure, but whatever, that's not important. The epilogue of the show basically has somebody looking directly at the camera and criticizing the whole idea of, oh, hey, if you just put one minority in charge, then that fixes everything. And then you no longer need to worry about any racism anymore. Like, you know, the sort of people who thought that racism ended when Barack Obama was elected president or people who think that sexism would end if a woman became president. Like, no, those ideas still stick around and fixing them is a lot more complicated than a lot of us want to admit and takes a much longer time than a lot of us want to admit. Like, the show does portray conflicting ideologies with regards to trying to fix things and make faith more equal to humans and also just fix human society and have it be less stratified and hierarchical. Basically, it shows some people who want to go a violent route and just break it all down and fix it as soon as they can, and then people who want to do it more slowly from the inside and, you know, try and avoid destroying everything that they're fighting for in the first place. And the show does very much land on the side of going slow and working within the system. But just the fact that it actually does take a side there and it makes a strong case for something and makes a strong argument for something puts it heads and shoulders above a lot of other things, which just kind of touch on more complex subjects. All the fantasy stuff here is handled great too. Like, this is low fantasy done right. Like I said, the Berg mostly feels like 19th century London, but there is some magic spread throughout. And like I said, there are races other than humans there. And just like, yes, this is how low fantasy is supposed to work. Like you have a few scattered fantastical elements that way when they show up, it's like more surprising. You know, I think it was last year I made a video all about low fantasy where I basically just complained about how it's boring and edgy because people use low fantasy as an excuse to not have a whole lot of magic or anything, which saves on budget, obviously. But also on top of that, it's like an excuse for them to be dark and gritty and realistic because like dark fantasy and low fantasy aren't the same thing, okay? I'm not getting into that right now, but they're just not the same thing. Low fantasy just means it doesn't have a whole lot of magic or fantastical elements. But like I said, because there's so little magic in here when it actually shows up, it's more shocking and carries a lot more weight. For example, in season two, they introduce a creature called asparis. And just look at this fucking thing. I mean, that is straight out of a horror movie. Like if every episode had crazy fantastical creatures that the heroes had to kill or fight or track down or whatever, then the asparis just would not look that impressive or have that much shock when it shows up. But like when it shows up and we see just how powerful it is and how hard to kill it is, like yeah, it works really well. And the fact that this world is so similar to our own, or at least it feels similar to our own, like it is still fairly different, but there's a lot of parallels to our own world and it just, like I said, it looks very similar to 19th century London. But because it feels familiar, it makes the messages about like racism and class relations and stuff carry a bit more. Because if it was in a really crazy fantasy realm, then it would feel just too exotic and foreign, so it wouldn't seem like it applies to our real world. Like, you know, the Berg, for example, is a republic. It's kind of an aristocratic republic. Like I don't know exactly how it works, but like when members of parliament die, their children seem to inherit their position in parliament, but also I think that like they lose their position if they aren't reelected in, you know, during the next election. I'm not totally sure. It's not explained super well, but anyways, the Berg is a republic instead of a monarchy, so it doesn't just say, okay, put a good person on the throne and everything's better. Like no, it says you have to like vote and agitate and try to find ways to influence the system that way and that feels a little closer to how most of us live than an absolute monarchy would. The characters in this show are almost all pretty deep. And I don't just mean the major characters. I mean, the major characters and the minor ones who just show up for a minute or two, like if you stop and think about them, they seem to have a surprising amount of depth and complexity to them, even if they seem simple at first. Like Philo, for instance, the main character of the whole show, at first he seems like a gruff cop with a dark past, you know, kind of dull, but not necessarily bad. He seems like he could carry a show like this, but after a couple episodes, you realize he's holding in a lot of stuff. Like he's holding in a lot of secrets about his past and a lot of trauma and a lot of emotions that he just doesn't wanna show the world because he has to hide his true self, otherwise bad things might happen. And it makes sense why he would feel that way. And when you see that, you're like, okay, I get it, dude. I do get it. And he is mostly a good guy as well. Like our introduction to his character is him seeing some other cops try to shake down a shopkeeper so he threatens to murder one of them with a meat cleaver. And we realized from the beginning, okay, this is a decent guy who's trying to bring like some law in order to the burg and try to protect people who need protecting. Although I will say this show seems to flip back and forth on its opinion on cops. Like sometimes it seems like it's saying most of them are good, but there's a few bad apples. And sometimes it seems like it's saying most of them are bad, but like Philo and a couple others are decent. I don't know whatever the point is. Philo is mostly a decent guy, but he has flaws. Like he does do some bad things. He does hurt some of the people he loves. And he suffers for it. You know, like at the end of the show, he doesn't get a stereotypical happy ending. And so he honestly seems lost at the end of it. Like I don't know where he's gonna go with this, but I wish him the best on his journey. And then there's Vignette, the other main character who is not quite as complex as Philo. And part of that might just be that Cara Delevingne isn't as good of an actor as Orlando Bloom is, but whatever. Anyways, she's not as complex, but she does still work as a shell-shocked refugee who's trying to preserve some remnant of her destroyed home. Like I said, from the very first scene of the show, we see exactly what has happened to Tiernanov. We see exactly what has happened to her home. And we know why she fled to the burg. And so she doesn't wanna be there is the thing. Like throughout the entire series, you know, like she does not wanna be there. She wants to be back in her home where like her old culture was and just the place she knows, her old friends, all that. And while she's in the burg, she's like still trying to preserve some remnant of their old culture and some remnant of her old life. And because of that, she does do a couple of bad things, but like it always makes sense when she does it. And like she just feels like she hates feeling so small and powerless in this world where all these crazy systems and powerful men are causing all these problems and she just wants to lash out at anyone and anything she can. In the first season, Jared Harris is here and he plays Chancellor Brakespear, who is basically the prime minister of the burg. Like he's, you know, just he's in charge of shit. And he's not in season two, which is to be expected because Jared Harris very rarely gets a chance to properly shine in anything. Like he's in a lot of shows and stuff, but it's rare that he gets a chance to like be the star of it. Like I think the only time he was was in Chernobyl, but hey, I just wanted to mention that he has a major role in season one and he's really good in that role. I just wanna throw that out there. Then there's Dombie, who is one of the cops that Philo works with. And at first, Dombie just seems like a racist asshole. And yeah, he is, like he's not a good person. He is rude and violent and racist and just kind of unpleasant to be around. However, as the show goes on, we do see that he's not pure evil. Like there is a person underneath all of that. Like he has loved ones and he has ideals that he's trying to strive towards and like he has a type of person he wants to be. And he is capable of being reasonable at times and granted, I don't know if he's like a better person by the end of the show or if I'm just comparing him to like people much worse than him who show up later. But the point is when Push comes to shove, he is on the right side and he is capable of being a decent person. And the fact that he can start off as just this one note asshole character and turn out to be someone who, even if I don't necessarily like them, I do understand and respect them, that just says a lot about the character writing on this show. Now the only semi-major character in this cast that I didn't like was Ezra and that's Imogen's brother. Now the thing about Ezra is like, the writing for him I guess is fine but the acting is terrible. Like what they're going for I think is, you know, he's an aristocrat who his father recently died and their family is on hard times. Like their businesses and investments aren't going nearly as well as they had hoped and he is trying desperately to keep him and himself and his sister from becoming destitute and like losing their house and destroying their family's reputation and everything. And again, like his father recently died so his reputation is all he has left. And I think what they were going for was they were trying to make Ezra like, he's under this immense pressure but he's still trying to act like all dignified and noble like the way you're supposed to in polite society. But then just occasionally it becomes too much and he snaps and lashes out at people sometimes violently. And like on paper that's fine but he just, I don't know man. Whenever he has his outbursts his acting is just so over the fricking top. It's ridiculous. His facial expressions are over the top. He bulges his eyes out and he moves in these weird jerky ways. I don't know what that actor was thinking or why the directors had him do that but oh my God, I just, I don't know. I didn't like it. But even then like I said the writing for his character isn't terrible. At first it seems like he's trying to be really controlling of his sister and trying to stop her from being an interracial relationship because oh no, that'll harm our family's reputation and also he's kind of racist too and just doesn't want her doing it. But later in season two it seems like they're hinting that he's doing it partially out of revenge for wrongs that she has done him in the past and it makes their relationship seem like more complicated which I would have been into and I would have loved to see explored more but I think the writers realized that they just ran out of time and so Ezra's character arc ends very abruptly and in a very unsatisfying way. So I don't know but the fact that there's only one semi-major character in the entire cast who I just genuinely didn't like and was annoyed every time he was on screen is kind of impressive in a cast this large. Now the story is really great too. Like the pacing is just about perfect and the mysteries are great. Like both seasons feature characters going after a different serial killer or what is essentially a serial killer and both times it ties into a much bigger story around it and we're searching for not only who the killer is but also why they're doing this, who they're working with, who they're working for if they're working for anybody and that seems like it might be a little repetitive but it's not because season one is before the shit hits the fan and season two is after shit has already hit the fan and it's just progressively getting worse and worse and worse and they're trying to stop it and reverse some of that. When we eventually get the reveal of who the killers are in both seasons it's a great reveal and I couldn't guess at the answers before it happened but it did make perfect sense when it did and so this builds to a great finale of season one and a great finale of the entire show at the end of season two. There's very few tricks that the writers use to allow the characters just get out of trouble without too much effort. They have to really work and plan and sometimes get lucky to save the day. I don't know man, what else is there to say? I like Carnival Row, it's a good show. It feels like we only get a very small look at this world though. It feels like we get a very small look at it geographically because we only see a couple of locations in any real depth. In fact, I would say The Burg is the only location we really see in depth but we do at least see a couple other places and it also feels like we get a very small look at this world chronologically because the story takes place over not a particularly long period of time and there's so much stuff in the past and so much stuff that has yet to happen in the future that the series could conceivably explore and there's just so much out there that I am left a little disappointed but at the same time, the fact that this show only lasted a short while helped it avoid becoming a franchise. And you know what I mean when I say franchise. That's something where not only does the main show have to keep going on forever and ever even if the storyline has really wrapped up and there's nowhere else for it to go and it should just end before it really runs out of energy but also when it's a franchise that means they have to throw in endless prequels and spin-offs and sequels and you have to make an entire movie about the origin story of Henschman number three from episode seven because if you don't give him an entire fucking movie explaining every detail of his backstory and then Cinema Sins and Mahler are gonna make videos where they whine about how oh I don't understand this, this doesn't make sense this is bad writing and just endless spin-offs for more money like when it's a franchise that's what happens whereas Carnival Row isn't a franchise it gets to just be this weird tight little series that not a whole lot of people know about and I get to talk about it sometimes I get to recommend it to people I'm recommending it to you right now and I will probably recommend it to my friends and stuff in the real world and I don't know like it's not a perfect show but I love it I love it warts and all I really do and I don't have anything else to add but thank you for watching I'll see you later goodbye, check out Carnival Row if you haven't Oh my goodness, people are still watching this I'm not sure why I thought most people clicked away before the credits started but yeah, these are all my Patreon people and my $10 up patrons are Oppo Savilane and Olivia Rayan Brother Santotys, Buffy Valentine, Carolina Clay Dan Anceliovic, Dark King, Dawn, Dio, Echo, Flax, Carcat Kitsune, Lexi DeLorm, Liza Rudikova, Lord Tiebreaker, Microphone, Mistboy, Peep the Toad, Robi Reviews, Ruby Ishmael, Sad Martigan, Celia the Vixen, Stone Stairs, Tesla Shark, Vaivictus and Wesley all of you are great and if you want your name on here then consider becoming a patron you get early access to my videos as well it's a great deal, I promise and if you don't want to do that you can always subscribe to the channel like this video, comment on it so it goes around or becoming a YouTube channel member that's cool too follow all my socials and stuff which are linked below I'll see you, goodbye