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"Luke Pasqualino&amp;#039;s d&amp;#039;Artagnan was the star of The Musketeers&amp;#039; first episode but hasn&amp;#039;t really taken focus since, so it&amp;#039;s refreshing to see the plucky young hero return very much to the forefront for &amp;#039;The Challenge&amp;#039; - the adventure serial&amp;#039;s latest outing.  Romance might finally be blossoming with Tamla Kari&amp;#039;s comely Constance, but elsewhere d&amp;#039;Artagnan&amp;#039;s fortunes are less favourable. He&amp;#039;s yet to become a true Musketeer and a new nemesis also lurks on the horizon, the fearsome brute Labarge - with guest star Vinnie Jones taking on the sort of period villain role he&amp;#039;s not attempted since the music video for Westlife&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Bop Bop Baby&amp;#039;. Jones might be a one-trick pony, but it&amp;#039;s a trick he&amp;#039;s undeniably good at performing and it&amp;#039;s enormous fun seeing his cockney hardman routine relocated to 17th Century Paris. Labarge - a man with &amp;quot;no more humanity than a jackal&amp;quot; - is swiftly recruited by the cunning Cardinal (Peter Capaldi) and serves as his representative in a contest against the Musketeers, with d&amp;#039;Artagnan desperate to face the not-so-gentle giant to repay a personal slight and prove his worth to his friends, the King and the woman he loves.  With plenty of action, intrigue and Vinnie Jones doing what he does best, &amp;#039;The Challenge&amp;#039; is a fast-paced, colourful romp that also manages to advance the series arc, with d&amp;#039;Artagnan&amp;#039;s victory finally securing his position as a bona fide Musketeer. With his promotion coming soon after his first clinch with Constance, it&amp;#039;s clear that Adrian Hodges and his writing team aren&amp;#039;t afraid of taking big steps forward. Further fun is offered up this week by Maimie McCoy&amp;#039;s magnificent Milady de Winter, who saucily saunters about, toying with all the men around her and delivering lines like &amp;quot;You underestimate my powers of seduction!&amp;quot; with aplomb. The love square between d&amp;#039;Artagnan, Constance, Milady and Athos (Tom Burke) can only end in disaster - was Athos&amp;#039; staunch support of d&amp;#039;Artagnan this week, not to mention their training scenes, a foreshadowing of a conflict between the two men once Athos learns of his young friend&amp;#039;s connection to his former love?  &amp;#039;The Challenge&amp;#039; features one final plot thread, but it&amp;#039;s perhaps the one element that Susie Conklin&amp;#039;s script could&amp;#039;ve done without. Not only is Porthos&amp;#039; pursuit of Zoe Tapper&amp;#039;s wealthy widow Alice Clerbeaux rather predictable - with his plan to romance and fleece her complicated when her kindly nature warms his heart - but it&amp;#039;s not allocated enough screen-time to really register with the viewer. Porthos being tempted to leave the Musketeers for love could&amp;#039;ve been its own episode - in fact, &amp;#039;The Homecoming&amp;#039; did cover similar ground - but here it&amp;#039;s swamped by the contest and Milady&amp;#039;s manoeuvrings and, as a result, feels undernourished. &amp;#039;The Challenge&amp;#039; might&amp;#039;ve been better off if it had excised this element completely and spared more time for further interactions between Milady and Athos or a backstory for the fun but rather one-dimensional LeBarge. That quibble aside, a winning blend of strong performances, a fast pace and a welcome resurgence for d&amp;#039;Artagnan sees The Musketeers come up trumps again this week. If the one major flaw in &amp;#039;The Challenge&amp;#039; is attempting to do much in a single episode, then you can&amp;#039;t really hold the show&amp;#039;s ambition against it.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-musketeers/news/a557471/the-musketeers-episode-8-review-vinnie-jones-takes-on-dartagnan/>