1x01 Episode 1

[7.0/10] So I’m torn on this episode. On the one hand, the craft on display is high quality. The show looks good, with interesting choices in lighting and composition, and some extraordinary production design. (Though the editing is notably bad in places, which is odd for something that's otherwise this polished.) There’s clearly talented actors on board, an interesting period setting, and some decent ideas under the hood.

But at the jumping off point here, everything about this opening hour feels so mechanical. All of these characters are pretty standard archetypes. The script is clunky as hell, with various bog standard character introduction scenes where the various players all but announce who they are, how they feel about one another, what their general deal is.

To some extent, that's true of most pilots. You have to establish the basics of the show’s premise and players and animating conflict, which means there’s a lot of heavy narrative machinery that gets wheeled into place at the expense of more natural interactions between characters. But for all the flavor that goes into the aesthetics and glossy production values of Peaky Blinders, the writing and storytelling feels very staid and vanilla in the early going.

It also feels pretty derivative. Aping the style of early 2000s HBO groundbreaking dramas is not the worst idea in the world. But if you’ve seen the likes of Deadwood or The Wire or other prestige series of the era, Peaky Blinders’ general vibe will be familiar, only clumsier.

That's not to say that the construction here isn’t sound. While a bit artless, the show does set up all the major characters, from the crafty young brother of the titular crime family, Tommy; to the hard-nosed inspector Campbell; to the spitfire matriarch of the Peaky Blinders, Polly; to the turgid older brother Arthur; to the agitating communist Freddie; to his “Juliet” in the crime family, Ada; to the tepid turncoat barmaid/love interest, Grace. Overly signposted or not, you won’t walk away without getting a sense for who the pieces on the board are.

Likewise, there’s a dutiful sense of setting up the major conflicts here. Tommy has inadvertently stolen a cache of weapons that has the big guys on his tail. His aunt knows but his brother doesn’t, and by the end, he’ll face the heat rather than pass up the opportunity. Meanwhile, Inspector Campbell is bearing down on the Peaky Blinders, the communists, and the “fenians” in the town to figure out who’s up to what. And along the way, there’s various romantic entanglements that are already in force seem poised to be. Who and how to run the crime family, and who and how to run the coppers, is already primed for consternation and narrative hurdles set to explode when narratively necessary. The show may be ham-handed about it, but it does set up conflicts both personal and “professional” to fuel the series.

I’ll give the series premiere this -- it has something on its mind. The show seems chiefly concerned with what it means to be a soldier come home from war, and the different ways veterans of World War I cope with what life hands them once their service has ended. Some become bookies, some become political activists, others just struggle with PTSD. Some do all three! The reflection on where their choices have led them, what sympathies and cynicism they harbort, and how the shadow of what happened during the Great War lingers for all of them is the most interesting thing here, even if it’s not subtle. Many of the show’s figures may be criminal, but you get the sense that they’re taking back a measure of what they feel the state owes them after their mental and physical sacrifices.

The peak of that is Tommy, and I appreciate the idea that he is both someone clever, who can play the long game and get crafty in ways his confederates can't, but that he’s also, as his aunt puts it, a bit devilish and reckless, to where he might fly too close to the sun at times. That dynamic is hardly unprecedented, but you can see the appeal of it.

My hope is that the characters get more distinctive shading as the show goes on and the table-setting and throat-clearing is done. My biggest problem in the early going is that it’s hard to latch onto any of these characters. They’re by and large stock and generic, without a ton of charm to them. The exception is Polly, who has some real personality as a firebrand and an interesting angle as someone who came to the forefront while the men were off to war but has to hang back now. But again, maybe that gets fixed down the line as we play less of the introduction game, and more of the “just being a show game.”

Overall, this is a glossy, well-made, creditably-constructed first hour of the show, that nonetheless left me cold in how mechanical and conspicuous so much of its setup and introductions felt. Hopefully with the game board set up, the show will be more compelling when all it has to do is move the pieces around the board.

A decent introduction, making me want to learn more about the Peaky Blinders organization and how it came to be. The characters right now seem a little trope-ish, though I'm optimistic that they'll become more layered people later on.

Thomas Shelby right now feels like the typical edgy cunning protagonist who secretly cares about those dear to him (i.e him saving Danny) though I hope he'll become more layered, as its clear there is still much to be known about him.

About the other Peaky Blinders: Aunt Gray so far seems to be the only other Peaky Blinder with brains on her, with her seeing through Thomas' secret crate fiasco. Arthur Shelby, the "head of Peaky Blinders," feels like he's only hiding the real mastermind of the family, Thomas, with how casually Thomas just withholds information from him and executes plans against his wishes. And John Shelby just seems like an idiot brute whose likely very loyal to the family.

The blondie seems like she's going to get very entangled in Thomas' life, and I'm looking forward to learning more about her, the spy for the cops who lost her father to the IRA, and someone who seems to never wear her emotions on her sleeves; The communist guy seems likeable enough, and I'm looking forward to learn more about his and Thomas' past relationship in crime.

The set design is done very well, it really feels like I've been transported to England in the 1800s, and the music just perfectly adds to that atmosphere.