The Bastard Executioner: Pilot, Part 1

September 2, 2015 3:43 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

The Bastard Executioner tells the story of a warrior knight in King Edward The Third's charge who is broken by the ravages of war and vows to lay down his sword. But when that violence finds him again, he is forced to pick up the bloodiest sword of all.

From Rolling Stone's "'The Bastard Executioner': Inside Kurt Sutter's Bloody New Show," by Noel Murray:

"Paris Barclay, who directed the premiere and serves as co-executive producer, describes the job as 'the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.' The multi-Emmy-winner buried himself in historical research, and watched a lot of movies, looking for cues to how to get what he wanted (something akin to Japanese martial arts epics), and how to avoid what he didn't (anything resembling A Knight's Tale or 300).

"'We knew we didn’t want it to be precious,' Barclay says. 'We wanted a Kurt Sutter experience, which means grittier, more immersive. We wanted the costumes to drag in the dirt. We wanted the fighting to seem un-choreographed, as much as possible. We wanted it to be more real, and more on-the-ground than we’re used to seeing on television. And all of that ended up being much more difficult to execute, if you will, than it was to talk about.'"

Trivia: Kurt Sutter is married to Katey Sagal, known for her role as 'Peggy Bundy' on the TV series Married... with Children, which ran from 1987 to 1997. She also played 'Gemma Teller Morrow' on Sons of Anarchy (FanFare), which Sutter created, wrote, produced, directed, and acted in (from Wikipedia).

TL;dr version: Two things ye must know to partake of this series: he is a bastard. And he's an executioner. Let the sword fly!

posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (12 comments total)

(This post is a little early - air date is Tuesday, September 15th.)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:57 PM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

I thoroughly enjoyed Sons of Anarchy up to a point, then got a little numb to it. (really? 18 shootouts a day with 143,534 bullets per minute and law enforcement can't quite get it together after 8 years or whatever?) But this looks intriguing. I hope its like Sons of Anarchy: Medieval Times.
posted by ian1977 at 7:37 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wow. Slate haaaaaaaated it.

It is truly terrible. I'm not sure what was up with the terrible camera angles, but maybe it was to disguise that half the time it looked like they were filming on a golf course.

Also, Vampire Bill is in it, and he appears to still be the worst.
posted by TwoStride at 9:02 PM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Grantland wasn't amused either: FX’s New, Ultraviolent ‘The Bastard Executioner’ Will Make You Want to Lop Off Your Own Head.
posted by xqwzts at 2:15 AM on September 18, 2015

I got about ten minutes in and turned it off. Seemed like it was headed towards the territory that the last few seasons of SoA took. That is, it was going to be a long and drawn out and utterly pointless soap opera.
posted by Catblack at 11:59 AM on September 18, 2015

It was the bad CGI monster and then him waking up from the dream. But then what made me give it a pass was his wife(?) asking him about the dream. I mean, that was just a little much, her asking him, like he's having that dream, of bad cgi and random women's butts and strange little girls in white, again.

If it's going the route of SoA with the lead riding off from one stupid crisis to the next, no thanks.
posted by Catblack at 12:06 PM on September 18, 2015

I actually had fun watching it (whatever, I've had a rough week!) but seriously the camera angles, whyyyy
posted by easter queen at 12:43 PM on September 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

On The Bastard Executioner‘s Bastardized Middle Ages
posted by homunculus at 12:37 PM on September 21, 2015

I wanted to like this and got through the pilot, but I could only make it 15 minutes in on episode two. It gets worse not better. Stilted, mock-medieval phrasing (what is it with Peg Bundy and that accent?) and wooden acting aside, the way that the players interact is as though they are just taking turns to explain the plot rather than being the characters.
posted by unliteral at 4:14 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Bastard Executioner Creator Takes out Ad to Cancel His Own Show: “Nobody’s F***Ing Watching”
posted by homunculus at 5:28 PM on November 18, 2015

Watch "The Last Kingdom" instead, it's so good!!
posted by Pendragon at 5:16 AM on November 19, 2015

Agreed Pendragon.
posted by unliteral at 4:30 PM on November 19, 2015