Amazon Released a Series Similar to “Game of Thrones.” But It Didn't Get a Warm Welcome

The creators poured sex, magic, magical creatures, war and intrigue into the series.

The series Carnival Row has premiered on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video, and it has many similarities with Game of Thrones. In recent years, Amazon has been using the Netflix scheme of releasing an entire season at once, so all eight episodes are already available for viewing.

It is impossible to escape the comparison with Game of Thrones, since the creators have fully reproduced its formula, adding to the series:

• sex
• non-existent creatures
  
• magic
  
• war
  
• political and romantic intrigues
  
• action taking place in a fictional state

The main characters of the series are a couple in love: Inspector Rycroft Philostrey (Orlando Bloom) and fairy Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevingne). Fairies are as similar to humans as possible; the only thing that outwardly distinguishes them is the wings on their backs, which allow them to fly. They are integrated into human society, but as a lower class: people make them work as servants or in brothels.

The plot unfolds in the 19th century — there are already trains and monorails. True, Carnival Row does not claim epic scale, because the screenwriters did not invent an entirely new world: even the parliament, from the inside, in its appearance and the forms of debate, resembles the classic British parliament with galleries facing each other and heated arguments.

However, critics and viewers received the new series quite reservedly. Although the plot so far bears no resemblance to the most popular series of all time, the above-mentioned similarities apparently force viewers to watch through the prism of Game of Thrones.

On IMDB, the average rating of the first season episodes is still quite high on the second day after release — 8.1.

On other film platforms, Carnival Row is rated less warmly.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season received only 51% critics' approval.

On Metacritic, where ratings are given by film columnists of the most popular publications, the average score is only 58 out of 100 (for comparison, another Amazon product, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, scores 82/100 here). The scores range from 80 from The Hollywood Reporter to 30 from Time. Mixed reviews outnumber positive ones, but only Time gave a negative one.

So far, this is Amazon's first large-scale attempt to capture the audience of fantasy fans after the end of Game of Thrones. Screen adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and “The Wheel of Time” are currently in preparation.

This year, a real war for viewers will begin among streaming services in the US and later worldwide, since Disney and Apple will enter the market in the autumn. Amazon is currently in second place in popularity, while pole position belongs to Netflix.