It's got Sean Bean in it but this is sword and monastery rather than sword and sorcery.
Bean plays Thomas Cromwell. He requests barrister Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes) to investigate the murder of Robin Singleton at a monastery in the remote town of Scarnsea.
Singleton, a friend of Shardlake had been decapitated. Cromwell has an agenda, to shut down the monastery now that King Henry VIII had split from the Catholic church.
Shardlake will be accompanied by Jack Barak (Anthony Boyle.) Both men are suspicious about each others agendas.
When they arrive at the monastery the monks have clammed up. Paranoid knowing Thomas Cromwell have sent these men to close the order down.
Author of the Shardlake novels, CJ Sansom died a few days before broadcast of this episode. He meticulously researched his Tudor mysteries.
There is no getting away with the shadow of The Name of the Rose, the movie adaptation from the mid 1980s. Matthew Shardlake is as intellectually nonconformist as the monk William of Baskerville.
The first episode was more about the set up. At the monastery it established the monks have plenty to hide and there may have been more murders previously. It is a promising opener and I expect less padding with this mystery as it is a shorter series.
The hunchbacked lawyer is the smartest man around. His almost Sherlock like skill to deduce the height of Simpleton's attacker by looking at the head might be a little over the top.