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- HULU
- May 1, 2024
- HULU
- May 1, 2024
- HULU
- May 1, 2024
- HULU
- May 1, 2024
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 13 Critic Reviews
70
69% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
31% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 13 Critic Reviews
70
69% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
31% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Perhaps one of the best things about Shardlake is also its worst: The series is a microscopically mini one at just four episodes long. On the one hand, this makes for tight storytelling, very little bloat, and an insatiable desire to binge binge binge like mad until you get to the very end. On the other hand, however, it all feels as if it’s over far too quickly.
Shardlake is prone to delivering dramatic monologues, when alone in his bedroom, usually as he divests himself of the painful brace he wears to help him manage life with scoliosis. But this is to quibble with an otherwise hugely well-executed and enjoyable (I forgot to mention Peter Firth having a whale of a time as the villainous Duke of Norfolk!) addition to the Tudor drama canon.
More than just acting as an effective story in its own right, this season also acts as the perfect set-up of a world for additional stories, with engaging characters and an enticing historical backdrop.
"Shardlake" is nuanced enough in its political profile of early 16th-century England, less so in the delivery of some overheated dialogue and the impression it seems to have that everyone spoke to each other during that period as if delivering royal decrees.
Its surfeit of broad, melodramatic commentary grants only the illusion of depth to its characters. Shardlake gestures at their inner lives and competing political visions but barely dips past the surface of their psyches.
The idea of a classic murder mystery with an epic Tudor setting and a big budget is an exciting one. But the source material and charismatic leads deserve better execution
“Shardlake” has much potential, but the monks populating the story — who function less as characters than human scenery — prove to be too stolid to function as true foils.
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