Shardlake - Season 1

A murder investigation is generally about finding out the truth. This turns out to be rather difficult when political interests get mixed up with the investigation.

It is often argued that politics is not about the truth. Shardlake makes the case that this was not so different some five hundred years ago. In this Disney+ adaptation of a book from 2003, we see how the title character Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes, The Innocents) is tasked with solving a murder in a monastery in England in 1536. More specifically, he needs to solve the murder in such a way that the monastery is closed, as part of a larger political struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism. His task giver, Lord Thomas Cromwell (Sean Bean, Game of Thrones) has some murky reasons for wanting it closed, and sooner rather than later. After all, this is the time of political turmoil, with religious reforms and power grabs left and right.

So the story commences with Shardlake being sent off to the monastery together with Jack Barak (Anthony Boyle, Masters of the Air), who is there to serve as both protector as well as supervisor. They are most unwelcome at the monastery, with the monks sensing the ulterior motives that the two have. What follows is an investigation into the murder, and a string of follow-up deaths. Throughout the season, one question continuously pops up: is this investigation about finding the truth, or simply about doing what Lord Cromwell wants?

While the setting and story line are intriguing, the execution was a bit disappointing. That is not to say it was bad; but it was also not great. The series is missing a bit of that spark. It has many things going for it: good sets, nice period atmosphere, intriguing setup, good actors, and decent music. But there are also some things missing, most notably, a strong script. The script is often lackluster, over-the-top, and unnatural. The old-fashioned language does not help in this regard, but is certainly not the main problem. This is amplified by their failed attempts to portray an inner monologue. The book was written from a first-person perspective, something that is rather hard to transfer to TV well. The voice-over and conversations with dead characters were not executed properly, and were, for lack of a better word, cringe.



This made it a bit hard for me to get attached to the characters. It also did not help that the whole thing is only four 40 to 50 minute episodes. The story is therefore quite short and it is hard to get to know everyone well. I do not feel like I learned much about Shardlake (except for one flashback), and only a little bit about Barak.

Furthermore, I noticed that a surprisingly small amount of time is actually dedicated to gathering clues. There is little build-up to revelations, it sometimes feels like we are watching a sequence of events just unfold, rather than feeling the tension building. Most time is devoted to, well, more murder. It does make the series less predictable compared to other murder mysteries, which generally follow a bit of a stricter template. On the other hand, I found half of the ending a bit predictable anyways. Of course, a lot of time is also dedicated to politics. This is not necessarily a good or a bad point of the show; rather, it depends a bit on what you like, and what your expectations are.

Overall, I failed to grow attached to this show. It was decently enjoyable, but I might not even have finished it if I were not set to write this review. It just did not get me hooked. Again, that does not make it a bad show (it was actually quite decent in many respects), but it does feel like there is so much more potential in there to make this an epic series. After all, the story, actors, and sets are there. It just needs a bit more of character development, and better scripts.

We will have to see if there will be a season 2. If there will be, I hope they manage to solve these issues.