FireflySerenity94

6.5/10 - A Discovery of Witches has the bones to be a great supernatural TV series, but is ultimately let down by poor dialogue and pacing issues. The storyline, especially the romantic elements, seems rushed/forced and the writing often cringeworthy and clichéd. It's hard to imagine the relationship between the main characters as something organic, especially set in a universe where inter-species relationships are taboo - you'd expect there to be more hesitation in starting the relationship initially, and instead have it something that could have been built up over the first season or so.

I'm focusing a lot of this review on the romantic elements because, yes, it is a dominant element of this storyline. So if you were expecting something other than a racy/romantic grown up version of Twilight you might want to skip this one.

What the show does well, however, is looking visually stunning and at least contributing something even somewhat different to a genre that has seen it's fair share of copy-paste narratives. Matthew Goode plays the role of an intense love-obsessed vampire with conviction, however, the jury is still out on Teresa Palmer's doe-eyed witch who seems to look perpetually startled (I must mentioned I've only seen up the the end of season 1).

The two lead detective roles played by Toni Collette and Merritt Wever are performances I won't easily forget, and are the highlight of the show. Unbelievable has a realistic, real world kind of style to the script which can be dry at times but also adds an extra layer of realism to the show.

Currently two and a half episodes in and I have to keep rewinding it as I find myself looking at my phone and missing plot points. It's therefore fair to say that Carnival Row is not enough to keep me engaged, which is such a shame because it had loads of potential. The visuals and steampunk style are great, but it isn't enough to resurrect this show from death caused by storyline and acting cheesiness, and not to mention sometimes lazy dialogue. I'll give it a few more chances, but I won't hold my breath.