Tuesday's Overlooked TV: Covington Cross

If you blinked very many times in 1992, you probably missed this short-lived medieval adventure series. According to IMDB, thirteen episodes were produced, but only six ever aired on ABC. That’s a shame, because while I haven’t seen it since then and don’t know how well it holds up, I remember it as being a pretty entertaining series.


COVINGTON CROSS was the story of Sir Thomas Grey and his teenage and young adult children. Unlike the current BBC series MERLIN, which I also enjoy, there was no mystical element to COVINGTON CROSS, no monsters or magic. It was a more straightforward adventure series, although with plenty of soap operatic elements and a certain anachronistic modern feeling to it. Some reviewers on IMDB refer to it as “90210 in the Middle Ages” (probably because of all the young, attractive characters and their romances with each other), while one of the producers is quoted as calling it “Bonanza in the Middle Ages”, which seems to me more accurate than the 90210 comparison. Some of the reviewers also seem to think it was a sitcom, which isn’t accurate at all. I wonder if they’re mixing up COVINGTON CROSS with the Mel Brooks series WHEN THINGS WERE ROTTEN.


I remember watching all the episodes that aired and enjoying them. The action scenes were pretty good (you know what a sucker I am for swordfights), and I remember being quite taken with Ione Skye as Sir Thomas’s tomboyish daughter. The rest of the cast was good, too. If all thirteen episodes were available on DVD, I might well watch them. Unfortunately, they’re not. But I’d be interested to know if anyone else besides me even remembers this series.