Want to start watching Vikings for the first time but!

[Marwanjukka]

Want to start watching Vikings for the first time but someone already told me that Ragnar dies in Season 4, so knowing that, is it still worth it to watch the show or I've already missed a major part of this show's thrill and excitement? Please let me know what you think. 

[Haleth]

It's certainly worth watching but you should really look for the earlier seasons.  Ragnar is a unique character and Fimmel did an outstanding job portraying him.  It would help with the context of the current seasons too, knowing the complicated relationships among the remaining characters.

[magdalene]

It's worth watching anyways.  Losing Ragnar hurt like hell but the show has other interesting characters and the show has remained exciting.

I will never understand why people have to spoil other people like that.

[Mrs peel]

Definitely watch!  For me, that the show was willing to kill off Ragnar is a sign they care about the series.  In history Ragnar did die "youngish", so showing him grow old would have been wrong.  And as others said, the other characters are well worth it!

Edited November 28, 2018 by Mrs peel
clarity

[green]

On 11/25/2018 at 5:31 AM, Marwanjukka said:

Want to start watching Vikings for the first time but someone already told me that Ragnar dies in Season 4, so knowing that, is it still worth it to watch the show or I've already missed a major part of this show's thrill and excitement? Please let me know what you think. 

Absolutely!  Not seeing the story of Ragnar is like missing what 99% of what Vikings is about.  Of course people die on the show.  It is a HISTORICAL drama about the Vikings and as you move through the story of the Vikings over a century or two people will die.  That is no big spoiler, just history.

But how important is Ragnar?  Well Michael Hirst, the creator/producer and only writer of the show, was going to move the storyline along much quicker when he started.  Ragnar was suppose to only be around a few episodes.  But Travis Fimmel's Ragnar dominated the screen so much that Hirst was smart enough to stop on a dime and then keep Ragnar around longer than history itself kept him around.  You have tons and tons of episodes to enjoy Ragnar. 

Don't worry about his death any more than if you were watching the story of the Americans and were scared to watch the early episodes because someone tells you George Washington dies before the 21st century.  Big whoop.  He is mortal.  Enjoy his adventures just like you should Ragnar's.

If you just start from the story now you will be totally lost.  EVERYTHING stems from Ragnar and his loved ones and enemies.  It would be like coming in on the 5th sequel to a movie and being totally lost to everything except the 5% of the surface stuff happening.  So start recording the current season and binge watch the episodes you missed up until now and all will be fine.  This isn't the 1950's where you couldn't catch up with a series once it started.  Use Netflix or whatever method and prepare for awesomeness.

And honestly binge watching Vikings is more fun then having to wait a full week between episodes!

[Captanne]

Vikings is one of the best shows made in the past few years.  (My taste runs from Breaking Bad to Sons of Anarchy to Vikings for "bests".)

green gives excellent advice.

[Haleth]

I finally got around to starting the new season and didn't realize the first episode on my dvr was the Bjorn centric one.  It is a sort of recap for anyone who hasn't seen the previous seasons, it hits all the highlights of what happened up til now and introduces all the characters.  (An appalling lack of Ecbert the Magnificent Bastard though.)  If someone is new to the series and doesn't have the time or ability to watch previous seasons this might be a place to start without getting too confused.

[Captanne]

For folks who find Vikings too hard to get into or daunting because they are on so many seasons (they have started dividing them in two!) -- there is a great little under-rated show on Netflix called The Last Kingdom.  At this point in series 5(a) and (b), Vikings is old enough and Last Kingdom new enough (and under the radar) that Last Kingdom is as good if not better.  There is a group here at PTV, if you're interested in finding what folks are saying about it.