The longships never really sailed away, did they. Every time the Vikings franchise looks finished, another sail appears on the horizon, and this spring it happened again. Amazon has ordered “Bloodaxe,” a brand-new Norse saga from Michael Hirst — the man who built this whole world in the first place — and for fans who have been rationing rewatches of Ragnar Lothbrok’s rise since the original show ended, it’s the news the fjords have been waiting for. The franchise that turned a History Channel gamble into a cultural juggernaut is picking up its axe one more time.
Here’s why this one matters more than the average spinoff announcement. Hirst didn’t just create “Vikings” — he wrote nearly every episode of its six-season run himself, an almost unheard-of feat for a modern drama, and then shepherded “Vikings: Valhalla” into being at Netflix. When he attaches his name to a new saga, it isn’t a brand borrowing his credibility. It’s the actual architect coming back to lay more foundation. That distinction is everything with legacy franchises, where the difference between a real continuation and a hollow cash-in usually comes down to who is holding the pen. Warning: beyond this point there are spoilers for the setup of “Bloodaxe” and how it connects the “Vikings” timeline.
The longships never really sailed away, did they. Every time the Vikings franchise looks finished, another sail appears on the horizon, and this spring it happened again.”
The subject is Eric Bloodaxe, and if you know your Norse history you already know this is fertile ground. Eric was a real, gloriously violent figure — a man who reportedly earned his nickname by murdering his way through his own brothers in a bid to rule Norway, then took his ambitions across the sea toward England. That’s the kind of larger-than-life historical brute the franchise feasts on. Australian actor Xavier Molyneux has landed the leading role, stepping into a part that demands both menace and the strange charisma that makes an audience root for a killer, the same alchemy that made Travis Fimmel’s Ragnar so magnetic a decade ago.
The clever structural hook is where “Bloodaxe” sits on the map. The series takes place decades after the original “Vikings” and decades before “Vikings: Valhalla,” which means Hirst is quietly stitching his two shows into one continuous chronicle of the Viking Age. That’s a big deal for the people who watch these things obsessively — suddenly there’s a spine connecting Ragnar’s sons to the world of Leif Erikson, with Bloodaxe as the bridge generation nobody had dramatized yet. It reframes the whole franchise as a single sprawling history rather than two separate shows that happen to share a genre.
The logline keeps things focused and personal: Bloodaxe and Gunnhild fighting for the throne of Norway. Gunnhild is a name that should make longtime fans sit up, because the historical Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, was a formidable figure in her own right — a queen accused by the sagas of sorcery and ruthless political maneuvering, exactly the kind of powerful, morally slippery woman “Vikings” always wrote better than most prestige dramas managed. Pairing a killer’s rise with a queen’s ambition suggests Hirst is chasing the same intoxicating blend of brutal action and palace intrigue that made the flagship show sing.
There’s a lovely wrinkle in the production too. Hirst is writing “Bloodaxe” alongside his son Horatio Hirst, marking the younger Hirst’s series-writing debut. A father-and-son pair building a saga about warring bloodlines and disputed inheritance has a poetry to it that’s hard to ignore, and practically speaking it hints at succession planning for the franchise itself — a way to pass the world Hirst built to a new voice while he’s still steering the ship. Whether that partnership produces the same lightning is an open question, but the instinct behind it is sound.
The move to Amazon and Prime Video is worth noting as well. The original “Vikings” lived on History before conquering the world in syndication and on streaming; Valhalla was a Netflix property. “Bloodaxe” heading to Amazon spreads the saga across a third home, which is a little messy for anyone trying to keep the whole thing on one service, but it also signals that the brand is valuable enough for a major streamer to want its own piece of the Viking Age. In a market obsessed with pre-sold IP, a Hirst-authored Norse epic is exactly the kind of thing that gets a fast greenlight.
Naturally, there’s reason for measured caution. Valhalla was solid without ever quite reaching the heights of the original’s best years, and no spinoff has recaptured the specific magic of Ragnar and his sons. A new lead, a new streamer, and a historical figure less famous than Ragnar all add risk. But the fundamentals here are stronger than most revivals get to claim: the creator is back, the history is rich, the structural idea of bridging the timeline is genuinely exciting, and the franchise has proven it can turn obscure Norse names into household ones. The longships are back in the water. Now we find out if Bloodaxe can conquer.
What Do You Think? Does bridging the gap between the original “Vikings” and “Valhalla” make “Bloodaxe” essential viewing, or does connecting the timelines risk boxing the new saga into continuity it doesn’t need? Can a relative newcomer like Xavier Molyneux carry a franchise that lived and died on the charisma of Ragnar Lothbrok? And with Michael Hirst writing alongside his son, is this the beginning of a proper Viking cinematic universe or one spinoff too many?
See you on the next binge!
