This could be a series in itself: two creators build a rich and intricate mythological world of fantasy, recruit Hollywood stars, get a hefty contract from Amazon Prime Video, produce the first season of what should become a multi-season franchise with spinoffs, comics and merchandising, and then an epidemic breaks out an unprecedented world and destroys all their plans. This is the sad story of “Carnival Row”, which in 2019 was one of the flagship series that Amazon built on, and returned this weekend for a second and final season after almost four years, without anyone waiting for it.
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It’s a bit of a shame, because the first season of “Carnival Row”, which received mixed reviews, builds a rich and complex fantasy world that takes place in an alternate reality reminiscent of 19th-century Victorian London, and weaves a tangle of complex plots around the central frame story: mythological creatures who escaped from their world due to War and we settled in a London-like ghetto conducting suspicious, violent and tense interactions with the human race, there is a murder mystery and a dark conspiracy, there are stormy love stories, monstrous humans and human monsters, and a lot of implicit criticism of British society’s treatment of refugees and low-class people. The truth is that you need a 20-minute recap just to understand what’s going on and who’s against who in the first season, so the nice people at Amazon have prepared just that for you:
At least according to the first episode of the second season, the four years of hiatus were used by the creators of the series Rene Achevarria (“The 4400”) and Travis Beacham (“Pacific Rim”) to tighten the story and polish its beautiful visuals, Bloom and Delvin are wonderful in the main roles, and the richly detailed world of “Carnival Row” makes you want to explore it in depth. This, as mentioned, will not happen, because the current season is also the last: the production is too expensive, Cara Delevingne has become too much of a star, the buzz is too weak, and one of the most original fantasy worlds seen on the small screen will simply disappear in mid-March with the broadcast of the last episode. Thank you very much, Corona.