Wooooooooooooooooo! We’re getting closer to Uhtred’s arrival on our small screens and BBC America has released the first full trailer for Last Kingdom! BBC America has dropped the first trailer for original series The Last Kingdom, from Downton Abbey executive producers Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant. The eight-part drama series, set against the birth of England, follows young warrior and outsider Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon), on a fierce mission to reclaim his birthright. This is a slightly more historically accurate version of events during the Viking conquest of England and tells the story from the perspective of Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a man caught in the middle with often divided loyalties between English and Danes. Here is the new trailer for it! For UK viewers, the series is being produced in conjunction with BBC and I believe it will air on BBC2!
Most of you who follow this blog will know that I am a huge fan of Bernard Cornwell and his Saxon series! You can view previous posts regarding the series here:
https://timeslipsblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/last-kingdom-update/
You can also visit the official site for Last Kingdom here:
http://www.bbcamerica.com/the-last-kingdom/
Just a quick added note- there are plans in the works to continue the series if it is well received! I did read an earlier article where they’ve mentioned that it has long range plan of possibly four to five season following a guideline of two books per season? That would mean that during this first season we would see a combination of the first book, The Last Kingdom and the second one, The Pale Horseman.
The first book deals with Uhtred’s childhood and introduction to Alfred…
The Last Kingdom:
The Last Kingdom
‘I had been given a perfect childhood, perfect, at least, to the ideas of a boy. I was raised among men, I was free, I ran wild, was encumbered by no laws, was troubled by no priests and was encouraged to violence.’ Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of 9th Century Northumbria, but orphaned at ten, adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways. Yet Uhtred’s fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the last English kingdom when the Danes have overrun Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia.
That war, with its massacres, defeats and betrayals, is the background to Uhtred’s childhood, a childhood which leaves him uncertain of his loyalties, but a slaughter in a winter dawn propels him to the English side and he will become a man just as the Danes launch their fiercest attack yet on Alfred’s kingdom. Marriage ties him further to the West Saxon cause, but when his wife and child vanish in the chaos of a Danish invasion, Uhtred is driven to face the greatest of the Viking chieftains in a battle beside the sea, and there, in the horror of a shield-wall, he discovers his true allegiance.
The second book, The Pale Horseman:
The Pale Horseman
The Pale Horseman (the title is a reference to Revelation 6. 8) is the second book in the tale of Uhtred, Lord of Bebbanburg, and his tangled relationship with Alfred the Great, King of Wessex in the 9th Century. The story begins on the day after the events described in The Last Kingdom end, and goes on to describe the fateful year in which the Danes capture Alfred’s kingdom and drive him as a fugitive into the marshes of Athelney. It seems that Wessex, and England, are destroyed, but Alfred is determined to make one desperate gamble that might save his kingdom . . . .
I have just finished an afternoon of sorting through the video and will be back later this evening with an additional update including the still photos and what ever other bits of information I can find!
Time Slips 
Looking forward to that!
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Hmmmm, They need to promote this more…not that many hits on YT,
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