
There’s cruelty and then there’s what the BBC just did to its Atlantis viewers with “The Queen Must Die”. When its cancellation was announced a few months back, we knew that there were going to be a fair few loose ends left behind for Tumblr fangirls to resolve. But leaving it like that? Essentially trailing a season that is never going to hit our screens? That’s just taunting us. We’ll never get to see the hunt for the Golden Fleece, or find out if Orpheus rescues Eurydice from Hades, or discover who Jason chooses in his love triangle. Also, how the hell was a FLEECE (traditionally shorn from a woolly animal) woven?

Did Atlantis deserve more? Yes. This second season has moved on leaps and bounds from the first, featuring better acting, plotlines and characters who didn’t make stupid decisions based on what the plot required (although Hercules and Pythagoras did drop the ball when executing Pasiphae – this is a woman you know can do magic, and has in the past raised armies from the dead. Wouldn’t you make sure you buried her under a large rock after executing her, rather than leaving her out in the open for any convenient bird to steal her body and drop her back to her temple to get brought back to life?).

Yes, it’s a doomed romance – never get together with boys called Icarus who have their own set of wings, kids – but it was beautiful while it lasted, and made just a tad more sense than Jason and Medea becoming attached at the lips every time they met for no other reason than “I feel it too”.
In “The Queen Must Die”, Pasiphae said, “this night, it ends.” It’s sad, but apt, and now Atlantis will be added to that list of shows cancelled in their prime.