AnxiouslyBold

The Musketeers Season One concluded on Mother’s Day here in the UK but doesn’t premiere on BBC America until June 22nd. I went home for the weekend over mother’s day and ended up watching all ten episodes during that time because my parents loved them so much and wanted me to watch the finale with them on the sunday night. We literally spent the whole weekend watching The Musketeers and chilling out, it was glorious. Any show that can hold my attention enough to be watched back to back is a keeper in my book!

First of all I just want to liken The Musketeers to a couple of my other favourite BBC shows, Merlin and Atlantis. Like these programmes, The Musketeers is light-hearted, easy viewing entertainment and should be watched as such. Like I said, I could watch these one after another. They have interesting stories, characters and plenty of swashbuckling action to go around.

One of my favourite things these sorts of shows do so well is create characters with their own little niche. I think it would be so easy to have the musketeers all blend into one personality, but the four of them are so obviously different but compliment each other so nicely. It’s great to watch! D’Artagnan is the lovable newbie who’s got a lot of natural talent, Athos is the grumpy swordsman who’s often misunderstood, Aramis is the sensitive lover and the best with a musket and Porthos is the rough around the edges fighter.

I adore all four characters, but I’m in no doubt as to who my favourite is and that honour goes to Porthos. From maybe the second programme in he stuck out as my favourite. He’s light-hearted and funny with hidden depth and really brings some of my favourite moments to the show. While Athos was grumpy and D’Artagnan was foolish, Porthos was the musketeer for me. Aramis, though seemingly a lovely gentlemen was very off putting for me. It seemed that he had, to put it nicely, got around a bit, and to be honest that lost a considerable amount of his charm for me. Perhaps that’s just me!

In any case the series featured other wonderful performances by Hugo Speer, Ryan Gage and Peter Capaldi, the last of which I am entirely sadden to see leaving the show due to his appearance as the new Doctor! His character was such a huge asset to the show and though it has been renewed for 2015, I just don’t think it will be the same without him. The rivalry between the King’s Musketeers and the Cardinals Red Guards had been built up wonderfully throughout the series, as well as the Cardinal’s suspicion of Anne’s infidelity and it’s a shame that all of  that will potentially be lost next season. We’ll see.

I hate to be that woman but my only real qualm that I have with the show is the women in it. In my viewing experience they all blended into one. Their only distinguishing features was the fact that they had different titles and status’, other than that they might as well have been the same person living in different circumstances. It saddens me that so much work was put into the male characters in this show and all the females just got left behind. There aren’t any great, powerful, independent but realistic women like Gwen in Merlin or Pasiphae in Atlantis. All the women in this show fall at the feet of men and it just didn’t really sit well with me. Even the supposedly rebellious woman Comtesse Ninon De Larroque gets wrapped up in a romantic entanglement with Athos before wandering off into the distance.

If you disregard my misgivings, which didn’t really make a great deal of impact on my overall enjoyment of the show, then I’d really recommend this for a bit of easy viewing… because we all have days when that’s exactly what we need!

xx

BBC The Musketeers Website || BBC Atlantis || BBC Merlin