KAAMELOTT is simply the best French TV series ever made. It’s the baby of Alexandre Astier who wrote the script, directed the series, composed the music, and played the main character, King Arthur.
King Arthur is on the throne of the kingdom of Brittany and attempts to rule the kingdom and organize the Knights of the Round Table in order to find the Holy Grail. He is an intelligent, kind and modern man. Unfortunately he is surrounded by complete idiots.
These are Karadoc (Galahad) and Perceval (Percival), joint holders of the title of Kaamelott’s Biggest Idiots. There’s a sort of beautiful consistency to their twisted and imbecilic world view that makes their comedy moments pure gold. They spend way too much time at the tavern. Along the way they also manage to invent a (useless) combat technique involving vegetables. Karadoc is always serious when it comes to food.
Also, you will ship Perceval and Arthur so hard your brain will discombobulate.
If you’re used to Bohort (Bors) being a kickass BAMF you will be… surprised at this version. Bohort prefers flower arrangements to sparring. He’d sooner organise the program for the Autumn Dance Festival than go and fight a dragon. Bohort supposedly has a wife back home but nobody has ever seen her.
Arthur is married to Guenievre. Guenievre spends a lot of time wondering why they haven’t had any children yet. Probably it is related to the fact that they haven’t had sex. She has a phobia of birds and thunderstorms. She thinks Arthur’s mistresses are lovely girls and tries to be friends with them.
Lancelot and Merlin are Arthur’s two must trusted advisors. They are one of his few competent aides. Unfortunately for him, Lancelot is a massive dickhead and Merlin is more interested in making pickled peaches than performing any actual magic.
You may notice Arthur is looking annoyed/frustrated in practically every single one of these gifs. That’s pretty much his default expression. Arthur does try, but being surrounded by incapable oafs is really hard.
The series spans six seasons, which start out as funny little 3-minute vignettes and progressively morph into 45-minute episodes. The tone also changes, starting from light-hearted snappy comedy to darker humour and angstier themes. Arthur’s downwards spiral into depression is especially heart-wrenching. Every single character is incredibly fleshed out and you will come to love them for all their flaws. It’s everything that is great about French humour: witty put-down banter, fast-paced dialogue, fluid references to sex and violence, poignant characters that are both laughable and endearing.
You can watch Kaamelott online for free here!
