In Review: Atlantis – A New Dawn

Synopsis: Queen Ariadne is caught up in a war with former stepmother Pasiphae.

Review: Atlantis returns and after last years big reveal that Jason was the son of Pasiphae and her subsequent ousting from Atlantis the gloves are well and truly off.

In this episode the war between Ariadne and Pasiphae has well and truly started and already the former Queen of Atlantis has planted a spy within the court of Ariadne, which leads to the theft of the coveted artifact, which is so powerful that the armies protecting Atlantis will leave the doomed city.

Upon the theft Ariadne tasks Jason, Plythagarus and Hercules with retrieving it from Pasiphae’s camp. However this mission is not as straightforward as it seems and sees Jason incur a quite serious injury along the way.

At the tail end of last season we we given hints that things were about to get edgier with the series and if this first episode of the new series is anything to go by. It is well and truly delivering on that promise.

The humor and banter from the last series is still very much present between the three lead characters, but it is down played a fair bit and only really used when appropriate, but more in the vein of what we’d call gallows humor.

There are some fantastic moments in this opening episode and you are left on the edge of your seats with a fantastic cliffhanger.

Perhaps one of the best sequences in the episode is the segment in which we see Pasiphae’s apprentice ride out of Atlantis on a dragon. The CGI is flawless and I can see myself revisiting this episode a few times.

The three leads have really risen to the challenge. Mark Addy is as fantastic as ever as Hercules, but Jack Donelly and Robert Emms seem to have upped their game for this series.

I look forward to seeing where this all leads in the weeks to come.