The Tudors Review

A few months ago after reading The Other Boleyn Girl, I found myself totally obsessed with Henry VIII.  I could not get enough about the history and juicy details of the Tudor reign.

So you can imagine my surprise when one night I was flipping channels and stumbled across the first episode of the first season of a program called The Tudors on the local Canadian station.  I watched the first steamy and interesing episode and was hooked.

The Tudors airs on Showtime but since I don't have any premium channels I had to rent the first season from Netflix.  The second season is not yet available on DVD and the third season has just begun.  

When I looked at some of the Netflix comments on the first season DVD, several people were very disappointed that the show is not completely historically accurate and commented that it is nothing more than soft core porn.

I agree that it is not historically accurate.  Some of the characters are combinations of 2 historical figures and some of the facts are off.  But one needs to keep in mind that the screenwriter was asked to create a dramatic program that is loosely based on Henry VIII. While the Tudors were certainly interesting there is a certain amount of creative license that must occur to create an engaging story line.  The Wikipedia site does a good job of sorting out the differences between the true history of the Tudors and those that are presented in the show.

As for the soft corn porn comment, it is really steamy.  I was kind of surprised to see a couple totally going at it less than 10 minutes into the first episode.  There is quite a bit of sex in the first few episodes which was done perhaps to grab the attention of viewers and keep them coming back for more.  It continues through out the first season but seemed to taper off a little.  From what I've read about Henry VIII there were a lot of booty calls going on in the various royal palaces so it didn't bother me at all.  It was actually kinda hot :)

In addition to the interesting story line, the costuming and scenery are beautiful.  The acting is very good as well.  Jonathon Rhys Meyers as a young Henry VIII is impressive in the way he goes from authoritative to sexy to angry and scary.  I also particularly enjoy Sam Neill as Cardinal Wolsey and Maria Doyle Kennedy as Queen Catherine of Aragon.  And Henry Cavill... well he could read the phone book for all I care as he's just so enjoyable to look at.

I am very much looking forward to the second season of The Tudors so I can see what happens next.