‘King & Conqueror’ Review: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and James Norton Lead A Slow-Burning But Rewarding Medieval Epic

If it smells like Game of Thrones and sounds like Game of Thrones, you probably don’t need to look very far for the inspiration behind King & Conqueror — a series that leans heavily on that formula and aesthetic while grounding itself in a real and pivotal moment in medieval political history: the Battle of Hastings of 1066, which changed the fate of England forever. With Nikolaj Coster-Waldau — Jaime Lannister himself — as one of its leads, the connections snap into place even faster. Palace intrigue, battlefield clashes, fights for the throne: everything that made that show a phenomenon is here, minus the dragons.

Starting, in fact, with the complexity of the plotting and the deliberate pace with which relationships and tensions between characters and factions are established. Consider this, then, a helpful primer for anyone coming to this conflict fresh. The Battle of Hastings pitted Normans against Anglo-Saxons in the eleventh century, and while the series opens — in black and white — on the battle itself, it then rewinds several years to trace the point at which the succession crisis began to intensify. At the center of it all is Edward the Confessor (Eddie Marsan): a pious, somewhat timid king with no heirs, manipulated by his mother Lady Emma (Juliet Stevenson), whose maneuvering steadily inflames tensions among the rival claimants to his throne.

The two central protagonists are the men who will face each other at that mythic battle. On one side stands William «the Bastard,» Duke of Normandy (Coster-Waldau, sporting an impressive mustache) — Edward’s cousin, initially uninterested in crossing the Channel to visit a relative with whom he shares little more than blood. Closer to the throne and the presumed succession are the members of the House of Wessex, led by Godwin (Geoff Bell), Edward’s father-in-law — his daughter Edith was the king’s wife — who is determined to place his own son Harold (James Norton) on the throne. Lady Emma, however, has no intention of letting that branch of the family gain any more ground. And so, friends, begins a conflict that in real life played out over two decades and here gets compressed into eight episodes.

In between: betrayals, rival bloodlines, deceptions, lies, and relentless power games — games that draw in the King of France (Jean-Marc Barr), wind through various medieval cities, and build through skirmishes and smaller battles before arriving at the one that settled everything. While the men reach for their weapons, several women move the pieces in the halls and deal with the chaos left behind at home. Alongside the Macbeth-like Lady Emma, there is Gytha, Godwin’s wife (Clare Holman); Edith, Harold’s wife (Emily Beecham); and Matilda (Clémence Poésy), William’s partner — each carrying her own conflicts and obligations, not least the children they must raise through it all.

King & Conqueror follows the classical template of the medieval war saga, and does so without rushing — but without stalling either. Those with a detailed knowledge of eleventh-century English history will likely catch more of the finer details, and will probably find more to quibble with regarding the liberties taken with the historical record. For those of us with a more general grounding — shaped more by films and series set in this era, still faintly Viking at its edges — the show manages to balance informational density with carefully dosed intrigue and action.

It may not be the most gripping series on the market. This BBC and CBS co-production opts for narrative classicism over the relentless impact that streaming platforms seem to demand today, which means King & Conqueror will likely appeal more to history buffs — a series for parents, one might say — than to those seeking constant bloodshed. The bloodshed is there, of course. It just doesn’t fling itself at the viewer’s face every five minutes. And that, frankly, is a point in its favor.