Miniseries
Run Time: Eight one-hour episodes
Starring: Louis Hunter (Paris), Bella Dayne (Helen), Jonas Armstrong (Menelaus), Joseph Mawle (Odysseus)
Watch: the trailer
Watch it on: Netflix, BBC iPlayer (region-locked and for a limited time)
Synopsis: Searching for the woman promised to him by Aphrodite, herdsman Paris learns his true identity and falls for Helen of Sparta, igniting the Trojan War. (Source: Netflix)
My Spoiler-Free Thoughts: It has been pointed out that movies about the ancient world tend to be released in batches following some kind of change or technological innovation in the movie industry. Trojan War screen adaptations fit quite neatly into this pattern, and the adaptation for the current age of big-budget, on-demand TV shows is Netflix and the BBC’s Troy: Fall of a City. The series’ eight-hour run time allows for the inclusion of characters and events that are often cut from Trojan War movies, but don’t look here for a straight adaptation of the mythology. The show provides a fresh look at several characters, a new take on some of the main events, and an entirely new subplot. All this — plus the show’s focus on the characters instead of the battles — makes Troy: Fall of a City feel very different from previous Trojan War screen versions, and I absolutely loved it. It’s not perfect — sometimes plot elements are forgotten about from one episode to the next, the story stumbles a bit near the end, and I’m a little iffy on the new subplot — but the music is great, the acting is solid, the sets and locations and costumes are beautiful, the last episode holds nothing back, and overall I just really enjoyed seeing such a fresh take on my favourite story and the characters who inhabit it. It’s been fourteen years since the last big-budget Trojan War screen adaptation, and, for me at least, Troy: Fall of a City was worth the wait.
My Thoughts WITH SPOILERS!: Apparently this is the year I learn to love Paris because, as with Shin Toroia Monogatari, my favourite thing about Troy: Fall of a City is its Paris.
When Trojan War adaptations include Paris’s shepherd backstory, they tend to treat the moment he learns he’s a prince as an instant transformation. He has no problem letting go of his shepherd life and he immediately knows how to act like a prince. Troy: Fall of a City takes a different route. Paris’s first meeting with his birth parents shows us a man who, all at once and through no choice of his own, loses his family, his freedom, his way of life, and his name. I love that this show makes use of the fact that Paris has two names in the mythology and I love how he winces when he’s told that his name is not Paris but Alexander. I love how the first episode shows him pushing back against his new life and outright asking to be relieved of it. Then he goes to Sparta and learns that everyone wants him to change who he is just so he can be considered for marriage to a girl he has no interest in. This is a pretty unique beginning for our Paris character! I especially love how his lack of interest in living a stuffy royal life creates a real reason for Helen to be drawn to him, and he to her. This focus on Paris’s backstory also creates a situation where Hector is forced to fight a war for some guy he just met and doesn’t trust, which makes for some interesting interactions between them. Paris in the first couple episodes is irresponsible, arrogant, and disrespectful, but his frustrations with the sudden upheaval in his life make him sympathetic, and my only complaint about this early phase of his character is that I wanted to watch way more of it.
Episode four brings us some more great Paris scenes as events really begin to affect him. Paris physically harming himself because he can’t handle the guilt of having started a war is something I’d never seen before, but it makes perfect sense here. Then there’s the Paris vs. Menelaus fight, which may well be my favourite scene in the entire series. This show takes what is usually just a physical fight and turns it into an attempt to mess with Paris’s head, and it’s fantastic.
Episode five is a total departure from the mythology, but I loved seeing Paris return to the places he knew as a shepherd and discover that he no longer has a home there. His conversations with Agelaus and Oenone are so well written and acted and do a great job of building on the previous episode to show us the reasons why Paris decides to kill himself. The scene that cuts between Helen and Paris both discovering the body of a person who has died because of their actions was so well done and the end of this episode broke my heart.
Then comes episode six. I fell out of love a little in episode six. The total lack of explanation as to how and why the Amazons bring Paris back to life is a problem in a series where so many people die. They brought Paris back, so why can’t they bring Hector back? Or other Amazons? Or their queen?
And Paris’s reunion with Helen is bizarre. Why is Paris just standing in his room, when all the furniture was removed in the previous episode? How does Helen know to meet him there? Why does Paris have no reaction to seeing her? Shouldn’t he be relieved she’s in Troy and not with Menelaus, as he’d believed? Why do Hector and Priam act like the huge argument they had in the previous episode (which I LOVED) never happened? Why doesn’t anyone in Paris’s family ask for more details about how he died and came back? I know Aphrodite visited and filled them in, but the speed with which they accept it still feels weird.
While I’m talking about parts of the show that I don’t love, let’s talk about Achilles and Patroclus.
This show’s Achilles and Patroclus are just pals until episode four, when Patroclus gets sick and Achilles responds by getting super tense and upset. Then Patroclus recovers and they make out. Awesome! It’s 2018 and the first onscreen Achilles/Patroclus is here!
And then they immediately have a threesome with Briseis.
The problem I have with this is that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus has barely been established when they’re jumping into bed with someone they only met earlier in the same episode. It confuses things. When Achilles and Patroclus make out, is it because they love each other, or do they have the same level of emotional attachment to each other that they do with Briseis? Achilles and Patroclus get basically zero backstory so for all we know they also just met!
Then comes episode six. Achilles and Patroclus argue — Achilles says he used to have affection for Patroclus — Patroclus says it wasn’t affection, it was love — Achilles says love is weak. This is the only scene we get where Achilles and Patroclus discuss their relationship, and Patroclus seems to be more into it than Achilles is. Achilles doesn’t want to be in love? I guess? It’s vague and confusing, especially when compared with scenes between the straight couples in the show. I mean, there’s no mistaking that Helen and Paris are in a relationship! But for whatever reason, Achilles and Patroclus only have two scenes where they’re more than just two guys sitting next to each other. It’s no Song of Achilles, that’s for sure.
Then this show changes the staging of Patroclus’s death and has Achilles run into the battle to collect his body. This bit doesn’t work for me because we’ve seen both Paris and Penthesilea vow revenge on him and yet when he’s right in front of them, unarmed and distracted, they just stand there. You guys!! Do something!!
So I don’t love episode six, but luckily episode seven is much better, and it’s the episode where Paris completes his transformation into Prince Alexander. I think telling the story of Paris’s maturation alongside the story of the war is a really smart idea and, at the risk of repeating myself, it’s definitely my favourite part of this series.
Also in episode seven, David Threlfall as Priam is phenomenal during the ransom of Hector, especially after Achilles asks what Hector was like as a child. Unfortunately, the way Achilles’ death is staged diminishes this. The ransom of Hector is two enemies in the depths of grief coming to a mutual understanding. Troy: Fall of a City follows this up by having the Greeks trick Achilles into thinking that Priam broke the truce they agreed on, which leads to Achilles attacking Priam, which leads to Priam stabbing Achilles?! I am all for changing the story, but this particular change is not one I can get behind. It messes with the conclusion of the ransom of Hector and it also gives us an Achilles who has been screwed over by the people he’s fighting for — again. It turns Achilles into a pawn, constantly being manipulated by other people. This is not my preferred interpretation of Achilles.
Moving on to the fall. As I should have expected from a show that has “fall of a city” right in the title, the last episode does not pretty up the fall of Troy at all. We see the Trojans hunted down in their homes, forced back into increasingly smaller parts of the city where enemies are everywhere and there is no escape. Characters we’ve spent eight hours with die and their deaths are bloody and meaningless. Not one of them gets a heartwarming last conversation with a loved one. We see them lying awkwardly where they fall and it’s explicitly stated that they will not be receiving proper burials. Aeneas hides under a pile of corpses. Astyanax is thrown from the walls. That’s his fate in the mythology but I never, ever expected to see it in a mainstream screen adaptation. The episode ends with a series of faces, victors and victims alike who have been broken by this war. Then there’s nothing to carry you through the credits but the hollow sound of the ocean. It’s possible to watch many of the previous Trojan War screen adaptations and walk away feeling just fine, but when I finished the last episode of Troy: Fall of a City, I turned off my computer and just sat in the dark, feeling heavy and empty.
I mean all this as a compliment. This is the fall of Troy. This is the empty feeling that the best literary adaptations of it have given me. It was brutal to watch and I don’t know when I’ll find the strength to watch it again, but I’m truly glad it exists.
This show passes the Bechdel Test early and often, so before I wrap this up, a few scattered thoughts about the female characters:
· Hecuba and Andromache are both great and I love how their roles are so much larger than they usually are in screen adaptations of the war.
· The scene where Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite walk among the soldiers on the battlefield is fantastic and perhaps the most Iliadic moment of the series.
· Only Aphrodite and Paris refer to Helen as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” and when Paris calls her that in conversation, the person he’s talking to always rejects it. This changes Helen from the objective most beautiful woman in the world to the most beautiful woman in the world to Paris. I think this is both really sweet and an interesting reshaping of the mythology.
· I was glad to see the Amazons, and their total disinterest in Paris’s angst made me laugh. Penthesilea didn’t have much screen time but I thought she was portrayed well, and I liked her short scene with Aeneas. Interestingly, the Achilles vs. the Amazons fight is the only moment that I feel we really see Achilles’ true fighting ability (at least from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about fighting).
· I like this show’s Helen, but I don’t know how I feel about her subplot. I didn’t mind watching it unfold, I thought Xanthius was interesting and well-acted, and his friendship with the kids at the bakery allowed us to spend time with characters who aren’t royalty. But the whole subplot is based on something Helen never intended to do, it puts a wedge between Helen and Paris for more than half the series, it takes up a lot of time, and it doesn’t affect the fall of Troy as much as the show wants us to think it does (although Paris not knowing where his wife is as he desperately tries to hold onto his city is pretty heartwrenching). The whole drive behind the subplot is Helen trying to keep Paris from finding out her secret, but then when he finally does, he … doesn’t react? Which makes the whole thing feel somewhat pointless. I really like some of the scenes that happen as a result of Helen’s secret — like Andromache attacking her at the funeral dinner — but overall I’m not sure about it. I’ll be interested to see if my opinion of this subplot changes when I rewatch the show.
And one last thought: Diomedes has such an excellent first scene that I am legitimately annoyed he spends the rest of the series in the background!!
Overall, my feelings toward Troy: Fall of a City are extremely positive. I would be embarrassed to admit how excited the first episode made me, and I truly loved the series right through to the end of episode five. I could write a post twice as long as this one just listing all the little moments I loved. After episode five, the show falters and its inconsistencies become easier to see, but it comes back strong for the most harrowing fall of Troy that I have seen depicted onscreen. I love that the show’s length allows it to include characters and events that are usually cut, but I also love that the creators weren’t afraid to put their own spin on the story. It’s been absolutely amazing to have a Trojan War TV show to look forward to every week, and if it gets its rumoured second season, I will be there with bells on.
Watch: the trailer
Watch it on: Netflix, BBC iPlayer (region-locked and for a limited time)
The Trojan War Project 
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