Before that infernal tax kicks in, I’ve been trying to make the most of my Netflix subscription by actually giving all those new titles a try – many of which seem to fall into the gothic medievalpunk category. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with that, although I would personally love it if there were more gothic steampunk offerings.
One series in particular, caught my eye – Cursed. 
The blurb name-drops Nimue, Arthur, and sword all in one sentence, so I’m like, Excalibur am I right? Reading a little further, I also saw the name of Gustaf Skarsgård , who played Floki in that other series, Vikings.
Oh, and I also heard that Cursed was based off of a Frank Miller graphic novel. Haven’t seen it tho, so I wouldn’t know.
As it turns out, Cursed tries to position itself as the politically correct backstory to the Arthur myth, and is more about the lead actress’ supernatural druidic powers with the unnamed sword (which presumably will be christened Excalibur in the next season) playing a largely supporting role.
My instinct – as an avid fan of the Arthur myth eager to see it receive it’s fair share of the ‘Hollywood treatment’ – was to dismiss this as an unworthy addition to the body of work recognized as being Arthurian. However, having once said that all these new works should be taken on their own merits, I’ve deliberately steered away from that perspective. So instead, I watched the entire first season of Cursed.
At the end of it all, I realized that even on its own merit, Cursed is damned weak. The story-telling dragged like hell and pursued too many dead-ended subplots. Many characterizations were anachronistic, often jerking you out of your suspension of disbelief. The tone of the series as a whole was no better, vacillating from serious to comedic with little or no logic.
As a character, I feel that Nimue was under-developed; her motivations and backgrounds woefully done only in the broadest of strokes. There was more insight into her mother and she died not even half-way into the series. The same could be said for Arthur, although the most annoying thing about him – even more annoying than the bad acting – was how he always spoke through gritted teeth. Probably an idiosyncrasy of the actor, Devon Terrell.
And then there was Merlin.
Floki was supposed to be weird. He was ‘touched’ so to speak and was given to prophetic visions. Apart from that, the guy was a creative genius. In Cursed, Skarsgård brought Floki along for the ride and. to my mind, failed to even evoke the essence of Merlin. Think of Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor. Skarsgård was, to put it mildly, perhaps trying to hard to, I dunno, redefine Merlin (?) but only succeeded in turning in an erratic performance with little depth.
About the only things that I enjoyed was Pym – played by Lily Newark. For my money, she was the only one who’s character portrayal was consistent all through out. Too bad, she was relegated to the role of sidekick and convenient vehicle for an even more convenient deux ex machina.