Middle of the Row

I'd heard from a handful of people that there was interesting stuff about the Amazon original series Carnival Row. And indeed, there was. But it also really wasn't quite what I'd call "good." And had I looked up its checkered history before watching the eight-episode first season, I might have thought twice about watching it in the first place.

Carnival Row is a sort of fantasy story told in a Victorian England inspired setting, an almost steampunk blend. A series of brutal, Jack the Ripper style murders are being carried out in the Burgue, a city run by humans, but heavily populated by immigrants from fairy lands. The fairy people are the targets of harsh, systemic racism throughout human society; we learn more of how the characters fit in with this reality as the season and its mystery unfold.

The setting of the story is quite tantalizing. Nothing on television (nor, indeed, in any movie I've seen) looks quite like Carnival Row. The ingredients in this stew are all familiar, but they're well chosen, and in the right proportions, making a savory "broth." Not that this ever would have been a n episodic television show, but it it were, the world feels rich enough to easily sustain 100-200 episodes of something made to be syndicated some day.

Of course, these aren't those days, and Carnival Row is in fact built to tell one story -- the investigation of these grisly murders by one police inspector Rycroft "Philo" Philostrate. But the show often drifts from this, much to its detriment. It regularly becomes mired in the political machinations surrounding the Burgue's Chancellor, Breakspear, fancying itself to be another West Wing or Game of Thrones in its examination of intrigue and jockeying for power.

And it always keeps hitting its metaphor hard. The message at its core -- an examination of systemic racism -- is noble. You might even argue that the story line of Imogen Spurnrose, a spoiled heiress who gradually is made to face her own beliefs, is the most compelling of the season's recurring plot threads. But it's all handled with such blunt force that at times it feels more condescending than clever. Now granted, I watched the series before the current waves of protests and the surge in support for the Black Lives Matter movement; perhaps the show would feel less obvious and more inevitable if I watched it now. Still, the show seems convinced that because of its 19th-century trappings, you might miss how topical and current its themes are -- but there's no way to possibly miss them.

Or perhaps the themes are outsized because the characters are so small. Carnival Row is stacked with one-note, shallow characters. Philo the investigator broods. Vignette the fairy is a hothead. The Breakspear family schemes. So on down the line, each player with a single all-consuming trait that, for most, never develops over the course of the eight episode season. There are decent actors performing many of these roles, including Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne, Indira Varma, and the always excellent (when you give him the material) Jared Harris. They feel squandered to me in service of this.

As I was coming up on the final episode of the season, I had to know: had this show actually been renewed for season two? Yes, it had. But in learning that, I learned of its checkered history, which may explain the spotty quality. Carnival Row had first been conceived years ago as a film, and it was buzzed about as one of the best unproduced scripts floating around Hollywood. At some point, its creator Travis Beacham reimagined it as a television series, and that change was enough to get Amazon to bite... though an established television producer was brought on to work with him to develop the series. After the season was completed, Amazon insisted on extensive reshoots, over which this other producer apparently resigned in protest, only to be replaced. Then, with the season complete, Amazon agreed to renew the series... insisting on more creative changes that drove both the new producer and Beacham to leave; someone entirely new will be running season two.

There are several ways to read that chaos that could explain what you see on the screen. Are inexperienced writers letting a complex production get the best of them? Is a meddling studio sanding off any rough edges, resulting in a milquetoast product? Are there simply too many cooks in the kitchen? Was Travis Beacham a rigid, uncompromising force whose idea wasn't actually that good, and who rejected any help in improving it? It could be any or all of these things.

All I can say is this: Carnival Row remained a compelling setting, an intriguing universe, from beginning to end. Also, every episode I watched was almost the last one I wanted to watch. Perhaps the wait for season two will give me the time and distance to no longer care about continuing. Or perhaps I'll tune in to see if someone else steering this ship can make something better out of the quality parts lying about. But season one? I'd give it a C+ at best.