Tonight I watched the first episode of Sky’s new series, Hooten and the Lady, and I’ve got to say I’m glad I did because it was great.
Lady Alexandra travels to the Amazon on behalf of the British museum in search of the camp of Victorian explorer Percy Fawcett, along the way she encounters an American adventurer, Hooten, when they are both captured by a tribe of locals. After a trial by combat they have to join forces and make a run for it, eventually finding their way to Fawcett’s camp, where they discover a map to El Dorado.
I won’t give away anything more, suffice to say they encounter adventure and danger and get to know each other a little better.
I really enjoyed this opening episode; there was some nice scenery, beautiful relics, decent characters and good chemistry, all in all it was as much as you could want from the first episode of a new series.
The acting from the two leads, is decent but not great, I don’t expect them to win any awards for it, but they do have good chemistry, which I hope will develop further as the series continues. The writing is on the same level, not award-winning but more than acceptable.
Where this gained some solid points with me is in the location scenes, and in the artifacts, which looked genuine enough in the relatively quick glimpses the audience were given.
Not quite so good is the slightly derivative nature of the characters; there is a mix of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and Nathan Drake from the Uncharted games; I even saw a scene that was very reminiscent of one from Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.
Overall I’m going to have to give this 
because despite its flaws it is very enjoyable and I’m looking forward to watching the next episode.
ARC Books 