Frontier wants to be a gritty, morally complicated tale of colonial ambition. Instead, it mostly delivers a slow-moving, dialogue-heavy slog through the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur empire. The show is set in late 18th-century Canada, somewhere between the late 1700s and the early 1800s, and it follows Declan Harp (Jason Momoa), a half-Irish, half-Cree outlaw who wants to break the company’s hold on the trade. The premise is strong. The execution isn’t.
Trailer, via Netflix.
Jason Momoa and the Trapper’s Quest
Momoa plays Declan Harp as a man torn between his Cree heritage and his Irish upbringing. He is a skilled fighter and a natural leader, which should make him the heart of the show. Instead, he spends most of the series walking through long conversations about corruption, loyalty, and the nature of power. The show trusts Momoa enough to let him act physically, but it rarely gives him scenes that feel urgent.
Landon Liboiron plays Michael Smyth, a young man caught between his father’s ambitions and his own conscience. His arc is the clearest in the series, moving from a loyal son to a man willing to betray the company. Jessica Matten plays Sokanon, Declan’s Cree wife, whose role is largely defined by her relationship to him rather than her own desires. The show is better at family tension than it is at giving women their own goals.
Alun Armstrong plays Lord Benton, the arrogant governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s operations. He is the closest thing the show has to a villain, though the script treats him more as a symbol of greed than a fully realized human being. The show’s moral clarity is absolute: the company is evil, and everyone who works for it is either a fool or a criminal. That simplicity is a problem.
The Hudson’s Bay Company and Its Rules
The show’s central conflict is supposed to be about the company’s grip on the fur trade. In practice, that conflict is abstract. The company’s methods are shown, but the show rarely explains why they work or what keeps them in power. The company is a force of nature, not a system with flaws that can be understood or beaten. This makes the show feel less like a story about commerce and more like a story about a villain who cannot be defeated.
The show also leans heavily on the idea that the company is corrupt and engaged in illegal activities to enrich itself. This is presented as a given, not a question. The show never asks whether the company’s methods are effective or whether its rivals could do better. The answer is assumed to be yes, which makes the whole enterprise feel hollow.
Netflix, Discovery and the Long Premiere
Frontier premiered on Discovery in Canada and on Netflix globally on November 6, 2016. A second season followed on October 18, 2017, and a third season premiered on Netflix on November 23, 2018, with Canadian broadcasts running from December 7 to 21, 2018. The show was renewed for both seasons ahead of their premieres, which suggests the network believed in the concept even when the results were uneven.
The show’s production is ambitious. It was co-produced by Discovery Canada and Netflix, and it was Discovery’s first original scripted commission. The budget shows in the scale of the sets and the costumes, but it doesn’t show in the pacing. The show is often slow, with long stretches of exposition that feel like setup for a payoff that never arrives.
What Works and What Doesn’t
There are moments where Frontier almost reaches greatness. The action sequences involving traps and ambushes are well-choreographed, and Momoa is clearly having fun in those scenes. The show also does a good job of capturing the physicality of frontier life: the cold, the hunger, the constant danger. These elements work best when they’re used to push the plot forward, not to fill space between conversations.
The dialogue is a constant issue. Characters frequently explain things they should know instinctively, and the show leans on monologues about betrayal and honor that feel like homework. The show is at its worst when it tries to be profound, and at its best when it simply lets the actors move.
A Score That Reflects the Mess
Frontier is a show with a good idea and a weak execution. It has moments of genuine tension and a few characters who are worth caring about, but it never commits to the kind of storytelling that would make its world feel alive. The show’s failure is not a failure of ambition. It’s a failure of focus.
The show is too concerned with explaining everything and not concerned enough with letting the audience figure things out for themselves. The result is a series that feels unfinished, as if the creators had more ideas than they had time to develop. That’s a shame, because the setting is rich and the potential for a great story about colonial ambition is there.
Frontier is a show that will appeal to fans of historical dramas and to viewers who enjoy Momoa’s work, but it will frustrate anyone looking for a tight, well-paced story. It’s a show that knows what it wants to say but doesn’t know how to say it with urgency. The show’s final season premiered in November 2018, and it remains a curiosity of Canadian television history: a big-budget, international co-production that never quite found its footing.
Key Facts
- Premiere: November 6, 2016 (Discovery, Netflix)
- Second Season: October 18, 2017
- Third Season: November 23, 2018 (Netflix); December 7–21, 2018 (Canada)
- Creator: Peter Blackie, Rob Blackie
- Network: Discovery, co-produced with Netflix
- Episodes: 18 total, across 3 seasons
- Main cast: Jason Momoa, Landon Liboiron, Alun Armstrong, Jessica Matten, Zoe Boyle, Allan Hawco, Christian McKay, William Belleau, Evan Jonigkeit, Breanne Hill, Michael Patric, Greg Bryk
The show is worth watching for the occasional scene that crackles with energy, but it’s not worth the full commitment. It’s a show that rewards patience but punishes attention. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s grip on the fur trade is broken, but the show’s grip on the viewer’s attention is not.
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