I see in fact Tom Hardy is credited as coming up with the story, with Knight and someone called Chips Hardy, who turns out to be Tom's dad. It's directed by Anders Engstrom and Kristoffer Nyholm, four episodes each. It has that same moody yet perfectly photographed look familiar from Peaky Blinders (DP Mark Patten; also McMafia).
1814. Tom Hardy returns from Africa, believed dead, inherits a key strip of land between Canada and America, and the evil East India Company want it. Myths fly about the man's savage past. There's something about a sinking slave ship too (in one of those silly 'whoosh!' flashback sequences that I've a feeling are all Emma Hickox's fault).
From whence cometh Knight's darkness? The show seems determined to wallow in its own filth, focusing on the baser aspects of contemporary London; the masqued ball seems more seventeenth century than nineteenth; the 'magical' aspects of the plot are distracting, to say the least. But there's enough of interest to keep us going. The ending seems to change plot entirely and is bewildering.
The War of 1812-15 was fought over the Northwest Territories, amongst other things.
Great cast: Jonathan Pryce, David Hayman, Oona Chaplin, Jefferson Hall, Richard Dixon, Jessie Buckley, Stephen Graham (almost 'doing' Tom Hardy in Peaky!), Tom Hollander, Nicholas Woodeson, Jason Watkins, Talullah Rose Haddon, Roger Ashton-Griffiths (one of many in the cast who you know but can't name), Christopher Fairbank, Louis Serkis (the boy), Edward Hogg, Mark Gatiss, Franka Potente, Michael Kelly (the American, Now You See Me, Person of Interest), Lucian Msamati (investigating the ship sinking).
Editors: Matt Platt-Mills, Katie Weiland, Beverley Mills, Guy Bensley, Mark Davis. Music: Max Richter.
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