USA TODAY International Edition
‘ Taboo’ isn’t forbidden, just unpleasant
FX offers signature Tom Hardy scowls — but little else
You can hardly blame cable networks if they seem a little crazed these days.
Everywhere they turn, they face new competitors. On one hand, those that have been producing high- quality scripted programming for years, like FX, face an ever- growing array of smaller cable channels chipping away at their business. On the other, they face a burgeoning world of streaming services, one more profligate than the next.
Is it any wonder that even FX, an outlet with as fine an array of scripted offerings as any you’ll find, seems desperate to get our attention? In The Americans and Atlanta, it has TV’s two best series, and yet neither can match the ratings of Game of Thrones or the pop- culture buzz of Stranger Things.
And so FX brings us Taboo ( Tuesday, 10 ET/ PT, eeEE out of four), a decidedly odd and generally unpleasant big swing that marks the network’s attempt to enter the dark fantasy epic territory occupied by Thrones — with a little Thrones incest thrown in for good measure. What it lacks, unfortunately, is Thrones’ sweep, moments of playfulness and narrative drive — or any drive at all.
Created by Steven Knight with Chips Hardy and star Tom Hardy ( who worked with Knight on Peaky Blinders), Taboo is set in London in 1814 — a fetid mess so dank, you can practically smell it. Clearly, this is not Jane Austen’s Georgian England, as evidenced by a showy, self- conscious use of profanity that ranges from offensive to distracting.
Hardy is James Keziah Delaney, a man of few words and facial expressions, all of them intense. Long thought dead, James returns for his father’s funeral to find dad has left him everything — including the rights to a plot of land outside Vancouver that is much desired by the East India Company and its evil president, Sir Stuart Strange ( a typecast Jonathan Pryce).
Strange assumes Delaney will be an easy mark. Little does he know that time away has sharpened Delaney’s instincts and given him strange powers to commune with the dead. Unless, of course, he’s just insane — a possibility that for now is left on the table.
There’s no doubt Hardy knows how to hold the camera ( which is a good thing, because it’s usually focused on him in tight closeup). But in its early going, Knight gives him little to do but scowl and threaten — so little, that those few moments of over- thetop violence are almost welcome as a change of pace.
Indeed, to say Taboo starts slowly would be unfair to slow things: It barely starts at all. It’s mostly all portent — scene after scene of somber looks, eerie music and cloudy skies, occasionally interrupted by a profane outburst or a lustful look. Perhaps more and better is coming, but in this era of abundance, it’s hard to imagine anyone but the most devoted fans of Hardy, Knight or FX having the patience to wait for it.
And expecting them to do so just seems crazy.