Prime Video Just Stealth Released One of the Biggest BBC Historical Dramas of the Year

We all know that we live in an Age of Content. Dozens of television shows, movies, and unscripted series are hitting streaming on what feels like a daily, if not hourly basis, and it’s honestly more than any of us could ever hope to keep up with. But it does help when you at least know they exist. Case in point, Prime Video’s King & Conqueror, which many people may be surprised to learn you can actually turn on your televisions and watch right now. 

The streamer’s decision to stealth drop the series, a big-budget, sweeping British historical drama that aired on BBC One and BBC iPlayer earlier this fall, with absolutely zero fanfare — not even a pre-release date announcement! — is fairly bizarre. Given the earlier buzz around the streamer’s acquisition of the series, it seems almost incomprehensible that it actually arrived with such a profound whimper. But, hey, as they say, knowing is half the battle. 

Featuring a starry cast that includes Game of Thrones alum Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and former Grantchester Hot Priest James Norton, the sweeping eight-part saga dramatizes the lead-up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, an event that reshaped England forever and ushered in profound changes in everything from the aristocracy to the country’s language. But though the show features its fair share of bloody battles and grisly betrayals, its story is primarily told through the strangely mirrored lives of its two primary protagonists: Harold Godwinson (Norton), Earl of Wessex and the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, and William of Normandy (Coster-Waldau), the man more commonly known as William the Conqueror. 

Given pop culture’s current Game of Thrones-induced obsession with gritty series following warring families indulging in elaborate betrayals and political backstabbing — George R.R. Martin’s books are not so subtly based on England’s Wars of the Roses — King & Conqueror feels built in a lab to hit and hit big. This story, after all, has it all: a messy succession crisis, an interconnected family dynasty that essentially goes to war with itself, complex women, and more. (Granted, the early reviews out of the U.K. are mixed, but much worse shows have dominated streaming charts in recent years.) 

Perhaps Amazon worries that U.S. viewers will find the complicated relationships and sprawling cast of characters at the center of this particular corner of English history too confusing to follow, and subsequently just threw the project out to see what happened. But the answer appears to be a positive one, given that the series is currently sitting in Prime Video’s Top 10 with almost zero promotion behind it. Maybe Americans are actually a lot more interested in early British history than the folks in charge at Amazon thought?