I Watch TV: Carnival Row

Carnival Row

Rycroft Philostrate, ex-soldier, now a police inspector for the Burgues, is on the trail of Unseelie Jack, a murderer who targets the fae. Things are complicated when his former lover, Vignette Stonemoss, now a refugee, arrives in the city, the only survivor of a shipwreck, indentured to the Spurnrose family.

But this steampunk-fantasy show isn’t content to stick with this promising start. Philo catches Jack and finds himself onto another case. Vignette, sexually assaulted by her employer, flees and joins a criminal gang, who use their dragonfly wings to fly around the city. The Spurnroses, on the verge of bankruptcy, have a new neighbour, a fabulously wealthy faun. And the son of the Chancellor is kidnapped.

Carnival Row is the name of a street, a district, where the various fae live, where there are brothels and… well mostly what we see there is a brothel and a street market and a temple and a witch’s shop. For all the richness and cleverness, the show likes to be grim and shadowy. And the same dozen people keep weaving in and out of the story, and the backstory.

Watch This: A cool fantasy thriller that blends a rich world with interesting plotlines
Don’t Watch This: Fairies and fauns have no place in my Victorian-style crime drama