Knightfall - first episode

The Order of the Knights Templar was a Christian crusader order that at the time of the Crusades, as a small part of the crusader armies, led a Holy War against the Muslims in the Holy Land.

Many months ago I saw a trailer of the new show Knightfall, and it looked promising. Beautiful images of fighting Templars, that appealed to me. That the show also belonged to the History Channel, the very same channel that has also created Vikings, made me even more curious.

The Templars, an order of knights who took a vow of poverty. I had heard of it before, but I didn't really know any of the background information. After watching the first episode, I still didn't know a lot, so I started doing some digging. I can tell you that there's a lot of information and that it's very interesting. If you don't know much about the Templars, I certainly recommend you to read more about it.

Right, let's stop talking about the history and let's move on to Knightfall.

The templars try to protect the pilgrims and the Jews, which regularly results in bloody combat.

The series starts off with a massive battle between Templars and Muslims. A castle, which contains the Holy Grail, has to be protected. In the series we follow the life and struggles of Sir Landry (Tom Cullen, Gunpowder), who after losing the Holy Grail 15 years ago is now told that it has been spotted. In the meanwhile he's left the Holy land and now lives with the Templars in Paris. But even there it isn't safe. The Templars try to protect the pilgrims and the Jews, which regularly results in bloody combat.

Does Knightfall live up to my expectations? No, unfortunately it doesn't. The fighting scenes are well shot in my opinion. Regularly our point of view is from inside a Templar's helmet, which provides us with a whole new dimension. The story is fine as well. Nonetheless, there are still some things that annoy me. Slow motion effects are regularly used and they really drag down the pace.The special effects aren't convincing either. This can be seen during the first battle, where the massive fireballs have obviously been edited in. It's a shame. These are small issues, but they still bother me. It could very well be that I've been spoiled too much with shows such as Vikings.



I still won't give up on Knightfall. Each show requires, in my experience, at least four episodes to fully introduce itself. Only then you can say for certain if you should keep on watching. For now I'm still part of the Knights order. The story is just too interesting to be left unwatched.