Pluskylang
Great Film overall
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
purrlgurrl
Yes, it's just a fairy tale about a solicitor in a picturesque British market town, his wacky family, and equally eccentric clients and fellow townsmen, but I totally fell in love with it. Sadly, it only ran three years before being canceled for being costly to produce, but at least we have those three years. I recently watched it on Netflix and had a difficult time getting through the last two episodes. I kept pausing the streaming because I didn't want to get to the end of the series. Stephen Fry is simply wonderful as Peter Kingdom, but so is the rest of the cast in their roles as family, colleagues, and clients. This show is such a charmer, you might well fall in love with it too.
standard888
I have to agree that if it weren't for Stephen Fry, this would have quickly been on the discard pile. The stories are a rather plain mix of DOC MARTIN and INSPECTOR MORSE, although Peter Kingdom is the antithesis of those two in his gentleness. The cases are not that interesting, really, despite some satisfying resolutions. It's one of Stephen Fry's strengths, actually, that he can carry a show with such weak scripts. The mystery regarding a missing family member was also less than I had hoped, but I was willing to accept it. But when it came down to it, the quirky villagers and incredibly irritating sister made this almost impossible for me to watch; I sped through most every scene with either.
clotblaster
Stephen Fry, playing an attorney with a young, eager-beaver legal intern, lives and works in a small seaside town somewhere in England. The show has wit and charm--also, it delivers thematically with usually understated or just matter of fact truths about life. Fry is truly great in this role, where he is asked to be the man everyone likes and to whom they turn to solve their problems, legal and otherwise. His character's sister is over the top with obvious, but not major, psych problems. But she makes a great contrast to the almost always unflappable Fry. A special mention should go to the actress who plays Fry's secretary/receptionist. She helps to make the show seem real by being a good person whose presence helps Fry to solve the problems of the various denizens of this village. At 18 episodes, the show is incomplete---the final episode does not in any way wrap up the show or give a sense of an ending. Three good reasons why show stopped: cancelled--Brit t.v. is notorious for cancelling popular shows (did it with Foyle's War and outcry was so great that it was brought back for a few more shows); Fry is a millionaire who may have decided that he'd had enough; the episodes had covered a lot of ground in terms of what it's like to live in a small village with quirky characters and situations. Anyway, with all he junk on t.v., it is truly too bad that a quality show only gets 18 episodes. I believe that with a bit of creativity many more stories could have been engendered and not have been repetitive or boring.
rmclink
Stephen Fry as the title role of Kingdom is wonderful. I don't find the other characters irritating at all. They're charming. They have great potential for growth which is why I watch this sort of show. I use to watch shows like "The Golden Girls" not because it was fantastic, in fact it was kind of predictable, but the actors performed that show with grace and a level of excellence seldom seen. Same for "Kingdom". Excellent. Stephen Fry is just a delight to watch do anything. He's real. Maybe he does one very good version of himself but have you ever seen a Brad Pitt movie? Same guy over and over and his movies make millions. Give me Stephen Fry any day. Give me Kingdom.
