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- Gísli Örn Garðarsson as Breca
- Kieran Bew as Beowulf
- Joanne Whalley as Rheda
- William Hurt ( Humans ) as Hrothgar
- Ed Speleers as Slean
- Laura Donnelly as Elvina
- Elliot Cowan as Abrican
- Edward Hogg as Varr
- Ellora Torchia as Vishka
- Charlie Scott-King as Woman
- Lolita Chakrabarti as Lila
Season 1
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 1]
The Return
Shown 3rd January 2016 [sunday]
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 2]
The Gathering
Shown 10th January 2016 [sunday]
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 3]
Shown 17th January 2016 [sunday]
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 4]
Shown 24th January 2016 [sunday]
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 5]
Shown 31st January 2016 [sunday]
The title character and his friends have landed on a beach. The four of them include two girls (presumably just as good at fighting as the men), one of whom has been blackwashed into an Asian character. The quartet are looking for David Bradley ( The Strain ). Unfortunately they seem to have landed on Arakis - there is a man-eating sand-worm, albeit a slightly smaller one than the ones in Dune .
Back home, the Queen ( Joanne Whalley ) is having trouble with her Industrial Revolution. The local Trades Unionist is having trouble with the fluid nature of Market Economics, and requests a transition to a Stalinist-style planned economy as opposed to the current Market-led economy where prices fluctuate due to demand. Okay, nothing anachonistic there!
There are a couple of problems with the arranged marriage. Firstly, the bride-price (a stash of iron weapons) is eaten by a sand-worm. Secondly, the Bride-to-be is secretly having an affair with someone else. Thirdly, the Bride-to-be has been infected by a mysterious disease, and the only cure is a gland from the sand-worm. Beowulf does what heroes always do - he goes off to kill the monster. Unfortunately the local guide who accompanies him is the bride's lover!
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 6]
Shown 7th February 2016 [sunday]
Beowulf and his Fellowship bring the Bride-to-be back to meet his mother. The bride is not for Beowulf, she is intended for his bother - a man already blessed with a hot girlfriend. However, the poor fellow feels jealous when Beowulf gets on with one of his women. As a result, he starts to listen to his Uncle.
Ironically, the Uncle (who plots a takeover from his sister the Queen - Joanne Whalley ) is not the bad guy. Well, not the WORST guy. There are a clan of Wulfing raiders on the loose, raiding and pillaging from a longboat. They do not have horns on their helmets, but they are uniformed in black leather armour.
Where is Beowulf when all the excitement is happening? He and his sidekick are off in the woods, investigating a report that a man was attacked by a bloodthirsty troll.
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 7]
Shown 14th February 2016 [sunday]
Beowulf plans to rebuild the village's defences. After all, they are surrounded by woods filled with angry man-eating trolls. However, he has left it too late.
The Wulfing raiders strike, and the Bride-to-be gets kidnapped. Luckily, Beowulf's mob take a prisoner as well. Can they arrange a simple prisoner exchange without messing it up?
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 8]
Shown 21st February 2016 [sunday]
The two Royals finally have their arranged marriage ceremony. The Uncle has sent a couple of emissaries, and their secret agenda is to undermine the whole procedure.
The uncle has problems of his own. His village subsists on catching fish known as Poe Dah Ray, which must be a kind of salmon because they swim up the river. However, the fish have not appeared and the village's boss is blamed. Also, the Queen ( Joanne Whalley ) has passed an unpopular law where the retail price of fish is determined by the government (i.e. herself). A few weeks ago the ironmongers went on strike to demand fixed market prices, so they could be guaranteed a steady income. The fishermen are evidently the opposite, preferring the fluctuating prices of the open market.
Beowulf's sidekick is targeted by bounty hunters. Luckily, in the Saxon (pre-Norman) period the law states that Blood money (compensation) is preferable to execution of a suspect. Can the local Asian community scrape the money together? And is a middle-aged blacksmith woman's virginity more valuable than a man's life?
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 9]
Shown 28th February 2016 [sunday]
Beowulf and his brother's girlfriend go for a walk in the woods. They are captured and held prisoner by the mud-born, a gang of non-human warriors who have black blood. These creatures are evidently the local equivalent of Orcs from Lord of the Rings , although rather than have expensive CGI or prosthetic faces they have bandages like the Tusken Raiders in Star Wars . Also, it turns out that there is a species of shape-shifter in the area.
Beowulf's friend the exiled murderer returns to town. He brings word that the Queen's brother wants her throne. But until Beowulf returns to back him up, his word is not worth much.
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 10]
Shown 6th March 2016 [sunday]
Beowulf and his murderous friend tell the Queen ( Joanne Whalley ) that her brother is planning a rebellion. She does not believe them, so she rides off alone to ask him herself.
Beowulf and his brother train the locals how to fight. Yet again, the Afro-Carribean knight and South Asian Blacksmith woman are dominant figures. The murderous friend insists that wooden weapons are useless, although later in the episode a woman uses a wooden rake to beat up four armoured knights!
A familiar face is back. Yes, the beautiful woman known as the Devil In A Blue dress needs help.
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 11]
Shown 13th March 2016 [sunday]
The Wolfings arrive by ship, and team up with the Queen's brother. The last time they attacked successfully it was by ship. Now they decide to go overland, so they open themselves up to a whole range of problems.
The Queen ( Joanne Whalley ) manages to persuade her people to take up arms to defend her reign. However, her pleas seem to make little sense. She states that blood relations are irrelevant, yet decries as traitors those relatives who take an opposing view on her reign.
Despite being disgraced, the Queen's son leads the Saxon Huscarls to defend the bridge. It is a fancy stone footbridge, too narrow for wheeled vehicles and yet carved with fancy stonework - like something from Lord of the Rings . The so-called Saxons include an Afro-Carribean man and a South Asian girl. They may have a shield wall tactic, but their shields are small and round and instead of two-handed axes they only have one-handed swords. So, not too many points for the historical accuracy.
Beowulf and the Buddist Monk fellow go to a neighbouring tribe, the Varney. Presumably they were named after the Victorian pulp character, Varney the Vampire. But will the reinforcements get to the bridge in time?
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands [Season 1, Episode 12]
Shown 20th March 2016 [sunday]
Finally we get the big battle this show has been building up to. The black-cloaks and blue-cloaks attack the village of the blue-cloaks.
In the end, it all boils down to who the people prefer. The Queen ( Joanne Whalley ) is an unforgiving and coniving backstabber who disinherited her only son and willing to marry the Varney King in order to get his army on her side. In contrast, her brother is an honest hard-working man who has won the loyalty of his people by earning it.
Elsewhere, Beowulf has his own problems. He confronts the shapeshifter woman, and he learns why the CGI creature keeps following her about all the time.
