Soon It's Gonna Reign

There’s really not much to say about The Tudors except that it doesn’t differ all that much from that other Showtime series, Queer as Folk. Only this time, the queens are real women.

Just like QAF, this new saga is short on intelligence but big on bed-hopping, handsome men, and a numbskull narrative that offers us Merrie Olde England by way of Aaron Spelling. In short, it’s irresistible. All that’s missing is Sharon Gless whipping up some bangers and mash.

Henry, his six wives, and the big break with Rome has inspired so many movies, plays, miniseries and even one big Broadway floperoo that we get a queasy sense of deja-vu just minutes into the first installment. But then Jonathan Rhys Meyers arrives on the scene. He looks about as much like Holbein’s Henry as Charles Laughton favors Elvis, but he immediately gives us what he does best. He smolders. He broods. He pouts. Then he gets naked and the games begin. His isn’t the only flesh that’s flashed, by the way. Lusty lords are leaping and many a maid is mating in nooks and crannies hither and yon.

Which is probably a good thing since the show doesn’t offer anything new in its consideration of history or the Who’s Who of familiar faces. Sam Neill gives us yet another Cheneyish Cardinal Wolsey, while poor Jeremy Northam hasn’t much to do as yet another nobly pious Thomas More (but then again, the man was a saint for all seasons, there’s really not much more you can do with him). Natalie Dormer plays Anne Boleyn as, what else?, a tarty sexpot while Maria Doyle Kennedy gives us one more tragic and put-upon Queen Katherine. Only Steven Waddington, as Buckingham, provides anything close to a performance but history being what it is, don’t get too attached. Remember that several unlucky players lose their heads in this oft-told tale.

The show looks great and exudes self-important pomp. And although it fades quickly when compared to the dearly departed Rome, it at least gives us something to look forward to on Sunday nights. . Not since The Private Life of Henry VIII or Carry On Henry (with its working title Anne of a Thousand Lays) has royal watching been so much fun.