• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, December 5, 2017

A bevy of English actors populate the cast of “Knightfall,” History Channel's latest based-on-history dramatic series premiering Wednesday night.

The actors are supposed to be French, but they undertake their roles in English accents, which can make it difficult at times to remember that the lion's share of the action in this show is supposed to be taking place in Paris.

Perhaps French accents are just too difficult for even the most seasoned thespians -- even actors from a country such as England that seems to produce some of the world's finest actors.

As many TV viewers are well aware, a number of English actors have no problem shedding their accents to play Americans in a host of U.S. TV shows. But French accents? Not so much.

And in “Knightfall,” not at all. The lack of French accents speaking English need not be distracting, however. The suggestion from here is to just go along with it and suspend your disbelief.

The same goes for the storyline in general in “Knightfall,” which features various characters from the real history of Europe in the late 13th century and early 14th. Whether anything they do in the show aligns with true history is something for history buffs and specialists to figure out.

Among the characters are Pope Boniface VIII (who reigned over the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303), King Philip IV of France, and various members of the fabled Knights Templar -- which in this show are noble warrior-knights who fight for the church.

In the first two episodes the TV Blog previewed for this review, the Knights and the Pope they serve are very interested in getting their hands on the Holy Grail, which went missing after the Europeans were pushed out of the Middle East, but is now reported to have resurfaced somewhere in Paris.

Where this sacred vessel is now, no one knows. But according to this show, whoever shall owneth this holy cup shall inheriteth the Earth (or something like that).

Fear not. There is plenty of swordplay and the grisly violence that results from it. Swords (and other objects) are plunged into mouths and re-emerge out of the backs of heads, limbs are sliced off here and there, and throats are cut.

All of the cutting and stabbing is accompanied by that squishy sound that is so common in movies and TV shows featuring this type of hand-to-hand combat before the advent of firearms.

“Knightfall” is not a bad show at all. It’s full of action, occasional torrid love scenes, and at least three actors who were once in “Downton Abbey” -- most notably Jim Carter, who played the butler Mr. Carson in that show and here plays Pope Boniface (with, it should be noted, no trace of an Italian accent).

The two others are Tom Cullen, who played dashing Tony Gillingham in “Downton Abbey,” as a dashing Templar knight; and Julian Ovendon, who played the good-natured Charles Blake in “Downton” but plays a more devious character -- a double-dealing advisor to King Philip -- in “Knightfall.”

“Knightfall” is History Channel's third scripted series following “Vikings” and “Six” (about a SEAL Team). These shows are not supposed to be taken as historically accurate, even if aspects of them are taken from history.

To its credit, History Channel never positions them as such, even though some people question why a network that specializes in non-scripted shows with a historical bent would dabble occasionally in scripted series whose only claim to history is the time period in which they’re set.

History Channel, however, is not an educational TV network, per se, even if some of its shows can be (and are) educational. Besides, “Vikings” has done very well for History. Why shouldn't the Knights Templar?

Among the issues raised in “Knightfall” is a wave of anti-Semitism sweeping through the Paris of the time. In the show, the Catholic Knights Templar gallop to the defense of the Jews after they're turned out of Paris and save them from being massacred in the woods outside the city,

Here again, I have no idea whether such a thing ever really happened. But it's nice to think that maybe it did.

“Knightfall” premieres Wednesday (December 6) at 10 p.m. Eastern on History Channel.