Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Alexandra Dowling, Ryan Gage, Marc Warren, Tamla Kari, Hugo Speer, Dominic Mafham, Mark Carter, John Harding, Anthony Houghton, Will Keen, Olivia Llewellyn, Andy Lucas, Richard Mulholland, Hugo Nicholau, Peter Pacey, Bohdan Poraj, Oliver Rix, Mateo Rufino, Charlotte Salt.
The safety of France is at stake and yet somehow it is The Musketeers that have placed it in danger by rescuing a man from a lynch mob. It is the sort of opening to a new series of hugely successful adventure series The Musketeers that feels as good as it possible to be.
The quest for glory and triumph over the nation’s enemies took a twist with the demise of the man who had led the charge against Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan in series one. The man who eyed the throne of France but whose religious dogma made it clear of the direction he would have taken it in, had he not been placed into a box and given a state funeral, was as easily replaced as friend who turns on you, but with friends such as Cardinal Richelieu, who exactly is the new enemy in town?
The inclusion of Marc Warren as the devious Rochefort is a touch that will either be seen as inspired or have the viewers wondering what the series would have been like if Peter Capaldi hadn’t got the call from the offices of Doctor Who. Although one episode in is always too short a time to make any informed decision one way or the other, unless of course you are the type to rush into snap and rash judgments, but the signs look good. It would take someone of the same calibre of acting prowess that Peter Capaldi has always shown in which to keep up the magnitude of what was at stake for the whole of France.
A well written adventure series always needs a good villain, someone in which to loathe from the very start, and if the Cardinal is dead then who better to step into the breach than Rochefort? He certainly has everything going for him, the art of treachery mastered, a lying tongue and a slyness in which is duplicitous and above all he is a particular favourite of the Queen of France, what is there not to like and in Marc Warren a consummate actor in which to play him. Time will tell over the series but the signs, as they say, are good.
The Musketeers was a real shot in the arm to television adventure series when it hit the screens last winter, Keep Your Friends Close, maintains that early season one interest going. Winter may be long and arduous but it doesn’t have to be dull.
The Musketeers continues next Friday.
Ian D. Hall