Broccolidwarf

...in pretty much anything, since the excellent "Frontier" that sadly got cancelled before running its course.

Prior to that the only thing I liked him in was GoT.

Safe to say, I have not been a fan of his work.

I AM a fan of THIS.

It's just brilliant, and shows he CAN actually act with some emotional debth, when given leeway to do so (by himself being the producer).

As a period piece I'd rank this almost as high as the latest adaptation of Shogun.

It's not quite the same production quality (clearly a much smaller budget), but on every other parameter it is just as interesting and well put together - and the fight scenes are actually better and more frequent.

Sure you have to read subtitles for much of it - deal with it - it's worth it.

I highly recommend it and I will be shocked if it is not given a 2nd season, with a bigger budget.

That's basically what the show is.

It has all the same historical inconsistencies and use much the same visual tricks (like equipment/clothing being uniform to tell armies apart in fight scenes, despite it driving the history buffs mad :P) - and take the same liberties with history to make for a more compelling story (like ramping up the court intrigues and its participants).

I don't mind any of it, it's not a drama documentary it's a fictional drama based off history.

Where it falls slightly short of Vikings is that it is simply too condensed.

It comes across like it was written so that they could end it as a mini-series after 1 season, if the ratings were not great.

The whole thing is too hurried, so we never really get to develop much of a relationship with any of the characters, before the Battle of Hastigs is already over.

It lands on a 7 for me, because Vikings is a 10.

The comparison to Welcome to Wrexham is obvious, and it is also obvious that is where Built in Birmingham goes wrong.

Welcome to Wrexham - from day one - had a huge amount of community engagement, including both the owners constantly doing things for/with the community and the community playing a huge part of the story itself.

It almost (not quite) made the sporting side of the story secondary, it became a "human story of struggle" which touched our heartstrings.

It works because the Wrexham owners seem genuine, it seems like they care about these people for real.

Built in Birmingham tries to copy that, but it doesn't work, and it doesn't work because Tom Brady is a very different animal.

He's not an entertainer, there is no softness in him, he is a completely driven competitor, where anything that detracts from driving towards the goal is a waste of time.

THAT should be the driving force for the show, that should be the perspective.

When you try to fit him into the Welcome to Wrexham mold, he doesn't fit, and the whole thing comes across as awkward and disingenuous.

If they do a season 2 - and I hope they do if they take my advice - they need to change direction completely.

Don't include the fans, don't include the community, make it wholly about the drive to reach results, with Tom Brady being the driving force for the show, together with the main back office characters, the manager and the players.

That would be far more interesting.