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Parents' Guide to

Carnival Row

By Marty Brown, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Fantasy murder mystery has big stars, lots of sex, violence.

TV Amazon Prime Video Science Fiction 2019
Carnival Row Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Community Reviews

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age 16+

Based on 8 parent reviews

JDRTH
JDRTH Adult
December 5, 2019
age 18+

Interesting but not worth the compromise

Right from the get-go there was blood and gore which didn't really bother me to the point where I had to shut it off. I watched about 30 more minutes into it and out of nowhere BAM! Sex scene, so needless to say I shut it off and another good series potentially has been ruined. It's definitely not worth the compromise to watch this TV show.
FatalCulture
FatalCulture Adult
September 11, 2023
age 18+

Lots of nudity, which isn’t mentioned in the content advisory

Violence and gore, kinda graphic but I haven’t seen anything too upsetting. Plenty of excessive, exploitative female nudity and a bit of male nudity (men don’t have any body parts that run on par with breasts so it’s never equal) but it’s mostly just naked men in non-sexual situations it seems. So far the story is good enough to ignore the nudity for me, especially that one weird one with Cara lol I didn’t even recognise Orlando at first either but the story is good, took a few episodes to properly get into it though. Heavy themes on racism through magic folk needing refuge and not being accepted etc
See all 8 parent reviews

What's the Story?

After escaping a massacre that took the lives of many of her people, a fairy named Vignette (Cara Delevigne) resettles in a city neighborhood called CARNIVAL ROW, where she lives among various other immigrants who have been driven from their own homelands. Vignette connects with a human detective named Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom), with whom she had a prior romantic relationship, and the two of them combine forces to solve a series of grisly murders that may uncover a pattern of corruption bigger than either can imagine.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (8 ):
Kids say (3 ):

Fantasy stories involving mythical creatures can often function as allegories -- about how we treat the environment, for example, or each other. Carnival Row makes a cursory attempt at allegorical relevance: it takes place in a refugee camp, except in this case the immigrants are fawns and faeries. But the show's attempts at topicality are entirely surface level, as Carnival Row feels more interested in achieving "prestige TV" status, attempting to justify its indulgences in graphic violence and sex, instead of exploring the nuances of its political allegory. The idea of a dark detective show taking place in an incongruous setting has been done before (see: Pokemon: Detective Pikachu or the unimpeachable Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) and the best ones work on higher levels as well as just the surface.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about fantasy storytelling. Why does Carnival Row choose to tell a detective story about mythical creatures?

  • Detective noir mysteries tend to be about corruption. How is the world of Carnival Row corrupt? How could the murder mystery expose this corruption? How does it compare to real-life situations you've heard about in the news?

TV Details

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