The Tudors - Showtime Original Dramatic Series Review

Title: The Tudors

Stars: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sam Neill, Jeremy Northam, Gabrielle Anwar, Callum Blue, Henry Cavill, Henry Czerny, Natalie Dormer, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Nick Dunning, James Frain, Kris Holden-Ried, and Steven Waddington

Cameo Appearance By: Sean Pertwee

Writer: Michael Hurst

Executive Producers: Michael Hurst, Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan, Sheila Hockin, Teri Weinberg, Benjamin Silverman, and Morgan O’Sullivan

Approximate Running Time: 56 Minutes Per Episode

Media: Showtime Original Dramatic Series (NTSC DVD Screeners)

Showtime Original Dramatic Series Premiere Sunday, April 1, 2007, at 10pm (ET/PT)

Network: Showtime Network (Check your local cable/satellite listings for channel)

TV Rating: TV-MA

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

I have been a fan of a lot of Showtime original series, particularly in the sci-fi genre. Programs like The Outer Limits: The New Series, Stargate: SG-1, LEXX AKA Tales From A Parallel Universe, and Poltergeist: The Legacy proved to be so popular that after the programs completed their respective runs on Showtime, they each got additional TV seasons on SCI FI Channel and in the case of LEXX and Stargate: SG-1, these series aired for multiple seasons after their run on Showtime. Stargate: SG-1 will soon air it’s final round of season ten episodes on SCI FI Channel, making it the longest running single science fiction/space opera TV series in American television history. Now you may be wondering, what does this have to do with The Tudors? Well, all of the programs I’ve mentioned above started in the 1990s and television have changed and along with it the way we perceive television drama in this decade has changed. For example, sci-fi in the 2000s is subtler. The top genre shows like Battlestar Galactica, LOST, and Smallville reply less on nifty costumes, larger than life villains, and Star Wars inspired effects and instead are all human dramas as well as quasi-primetime soap operas that also happen to deal with might otherwise be labeled as belonging to the genre of broad fantastic fiction.

Premium cable television has changed a lot. While sexuality and violence seem to be the staples of popular entertainment throughout the centuries, the historical based drama or soap opera is no longer confined to the likes of the BBC and PBS or even A&E. HBO had a hit television series called ROME, which is the best drama of it’s type since not surprisingly the BBC/PBS production of I, Claudius and the HBO miniseries Elizabeth I, which is an excellent companion piece to The Tudors since she is Henry VIII’s successor, garnered all sorts of awards nominations and winnings for members of the cast and crew. The current crop of original television series that engage me the most are all Showtime original programs that include the offbeat Weeds, the mini feature film of the week like horror/dark fantasy anthology Masters Of Horror, and what I consider to be the best new television show of the 2006-2007 season Dexter. Now Showtime is stepping into the increasingly popular historical dramatic primetime soap with the new series The Tudors, which focuses on the early youthful life of King Henry VIII as portrayed brilliantly by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and uses the backdrop of the King’s creation of what I believe is known as The Church Of England and the political fallout that occurs as a result of his setting himself as both the political and religious leader of England, giving him more power of his subjects than any one King of England ever had. The precipitation to this comes from desire and lust. Henry is in every way, a womanizer obsessed with having a male heir to keep the Tudor dynasty’s rule over England unchallenged after his death. His wife, Queen Katherine of Aragorn (Maria Doyle Kennedy) has not given him a male heir and seems incapable of conceiving another child so the King looks to younger women in the court in part as a diversion and in part for the hopes of finding someone suitable enough with noble blood that could give Henry what he wants.

Like a schoolboy subverting sexual urges through sports, Henry also devotes his free time, when he’s not chasing after beautiful female courtiers, toward participating in jousting tournaments with other young male members of his court who might as well be “The Rat Pack” of their day and in trying to build alliances with European countries that serve his personal interest. These interests include impressing the Pope in Rome through actions that preserve the Roman Catholic Church and denounce Martin Luthor so that he might be granted special dispensation by the Pope to obtain a divorce so he can marry the Lady Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer), who uses her sexuality to manipulate Henry at her father’s urging by expressing desire, but never letting the King have sex with her. Henry tends to drop his lovers like a child that gets bored of his toys once he’s played with them a few times. So sort of like using behavioral psychology in an attempt to change the King’s behavior, Henry now has fallen into what he believes is true love for her, but what may only be extreme infatuation for Anne.

Though risky as history and The Tudors illustrates, the temptation to engage the King by dangling a carrot just out of his grasps can yield great rewards or terrible punishment. So as one person seemingly rises toward sharing the King’s thrown, so another gets pushed further and further way as demonstrated by the calculating Cardinal Wolsey (Sam Neill), who won’t let go of his power and devotion toward the King easily since it would go against his own ambitions.

Featuring fantastic costume and production designs coupled with a terrific ensemble cast, The Tudors is a terrific historical drama series/soap opera though it is more reserved in tone than both the Elizabeth I miniseries and ROME, yet it is appropriately toned down because this is a post-Judeo-Christian Ethic Europe rather than a pagan antiquity Europe as portrayed in ROME and while Henry longs to make his name immortal in history books through glorious battles like his predecessor Henry V, the real covert plots involving the spies and assassins inspired by the Pope in Rome as illustrated in Elizabeth I have not yet occurred either because Henry has not yet severed the connection between himself and the Roman Catholic Church. So what we see is a lot of men and women filled with desires to impress the King so that they may get closer to their personal goals regardless if the coincide with the King’s agenda or not. So much skin is covered in modesty and so many people wear black all the time that one wonders why anyone would be surprised that a repressed society would resort to deviant means of obtaining their goals. They are in some ways more enlightened than the Romans and somewhat less barbaric too, but they are not as free or truthful about their humanity as Roman and other ancient cultures have illustrated. In short, they suffer from Judeo-Christian guilt, which their descendants in antiquity would probably find both stifling and even alien.

My only caveat in the series lies not in any performance, but in the look of the beautiful Gabrielle Anwar. To be blunt, she looks like she has a California tan in a pre-greenhouse effect England and as a result she sticks out from all of the other cast members and looks out of place too.

Overall from the six episodes of this ten-part new original dramatic series from Showtime I saw, I think The Tudors shows lots of potential with Jonathan-Rhys Meyers giving off a performance and persona that is reminiscent of a young Malcolm McDowell. The first two episodes are already available for screening on Showtime’s official website as well as available on Time Warner Digital Cable’s Showtime On Demand and Free Movies On Demand if you wish the sample series early. Otherwise The Tudors will debut on Showtime on Sunday April 1, 2007, at 10pm (ET/PT).

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