This new series opens with Richelieu’s funeral. Louis XIII misses him but the musketeers are relieved and mocking. Richelieu’s man Rochefort escapes from a Spanish jail. Anne gives birth to the future Sun King. Athos is fugly and an ill chosen camera angle shows us his nostrils. Rochefort (Marc Warren) has an agenda. The musketeers are arrogant, castigating, weaselly and full of inadequacies. Complications come in legions. Anne is a prig. Louis XIII bemoans and is increasingly fraught.

There are hints about Porthos’ paternity and Aramis learns that the late Cardinal knew all his secrets. The musketeers have to rescue a French general from a Spanish prison. Constance has verbosity even as she gets a job working for the Queen. This was all oily hype designed to narrow intellectual scope. A Spanish ambassador vivifies. Peter Capaldi’s exit has had a negative effect and the show and this episode could hardly be more boring.

D’Artagnan and Constance’s ‘romance’ is drained of feeling and thought. Constance drones on and on, essentially saying she has to keep her legs closed. Aramis’ plotline (which is a total rip-off of the 1998 ‘Man In The Iron Mask’) is tense and stunted. The musketeers’ uniforms are a plot point but they don’t have uniforms. The concept of infection is brought up. The Woody Harrelson look-alike Rochefort broods with his unwashed hair. Treville has assumptions, pre-existing prejudices and spews incentive.

Richelieu is dead years too early and Louis XIV birth has been brought forward. D’Artagnan is a man-whoring twat. D’Artagnan does ‘heroics’ and climbs up a well. The captive general’s dim bint sister Lucy is shoe-horned into the plot. There is nudity, action, no moral standards and metal railings. Where's Mazarin? What game is Rochefort playing?

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