If you didn't watch the season premiere of BBC America's new historical drama The Last Kingdom, yes, you missed out. Luckily, with episode 2 set to premiere Saturday, there's plenty of time to catch up on this epic tale about torn loyalties in a tumultuous time in England's history.

Like Game of Thrones, this story is based on a set of books — in this case Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Tales — and features all the blood, death, brutal rulers and fur pelts one would expect from this type of gritty show. But that's about where The Last Kingdom diverts from filling in the Viking Era TV Show Bingo Card and blazes its own trail.

In the first episode of the series, which comes from Downton Abbey executive producer Gareth Neame, we meet the show's central character, Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon). The episode starts off in the past and viewers see the boy's Saxon nobleman father killed in a gruesome battle. The orphan is soon taken in by the Norsemen, however, and raised as a Dane.

A similar fate befalls his childhood best friend Brida (Emily Cox), who when we jump forward in time about three-fourths of the way through the pilot we see is on the way to becoming more than Uhtred's friend.

But this female character is far from an arm piece or a damsel in distress, as Cox explains.

"I think in a sense Brida is maybe in a way one of the first feminists," she tells Mashable. "She doesn't believe women are under men. She thinks they're equal, which is great. She's a really really strong character. She says what she thinks, she listens to her heart."

This, says Cox, eventually becomes a point of conflict between Brida and Uhtred as their adventures continue. "She kind of doesn't want to be part of a society where a woman is worth less than a man."

Their internal conflicts are, obviously, made even more complicated by the ongoing threats from the outside and their constantly tested loyalties.

In that is also what sets Kingdom apart from the other tales of epic battles on television, Cox says.

"The goal was to show real people rather than pretending to be heroes," she says.

Like his co-star, Dreymon doesn't bristle at the mention of Game of Thrones. In fact, he takes it as a compliment.

"Of course it's flattering. It's the No. 1 TV show at the moment," he says.

"But it's different," Cox adds. "It's really set in reality whereas Game of Thrones is fantasy."

True, says Dreymon. "No dragons," he says.

Cox smiles back at her co-star: "I'm the dragon."

The Last Kingdom airs Saturdays at 10 p.m. ET following Doctor Who