Showtime for The Tudors Season 3
Henry VIII and His Six Wives Scrub Up for Erotic Soap Opera
Apr 5, 2009
Soap operas have long utilized varied settings and situations, but adopting the sixteenth century court of England is an unusual concept.
The show admits to being written as a soap opera rather than as an historical drama, but tampering with factual events is as dangerous for the future of the show as it is for the historical knowledge of the viewers.
The Tudors Season 1 and The Tudors Season 2
Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) has had sex with countless ladies-in-waiting from Elizabeth Blount to Anne Boleyn, dumped two wives through divorce and decapitation, and found a few minutes to govern the country.
Opposing the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, who supported the validity of Henry’s marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Henry split his kingdom politically and religiously in order to wed femme fatale Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer). Once Anne failed to give birth to a son and Henry’s eye was caught by another lady, the second season ended with the execution of Anne.
The Tudors Season 3
The latest season is expected to depict the third and forth marriages of King Henry VIII, and premieres on the television channel Showtime on April 5, 2009.
The first episode of the season can already be seen on IMDB.
Period Costume Drama
The series seeks to be a sensationalistic soap opera, but it is simply comical. Some of the lavishly staged scenes are visually appealing, but most of the filming and performance seems to be aiming to be a pornographic “sixteenth century” version of Baywatch meets The O.C.
It is painfully obvious that it is not period. The movements of the actors are often too modern. The dialogue is sometimes scripted as a combination of modern speech and modern ideas of stereotypical sixteenth century speech. The male performers escape wardrobe with basically authentic attire, but the female cast seem to be lucky if they appear clothed in non-tare away dresses, without the roots showing of their layered 2000s hair styles.
The Tudors Historical Inaccuracy
The Tudors has already committed many historical inaccuracies such as depicting Cardinal Wolsey as having committed suicide. Besides casting sensationalistic doubts on factual history, the show has failed to recognize the limitations it is setting upon itself.
It is perhaps understandable that the series chose to depict the illegitimate son of Henry Tudor and Bessie Blount as having died in early childhood rather than during in his later teens, although the character could have proved useful for dramatic tension in later episodes.
What seems a very odd choice of artistic license is the combination of Henry’s two sisters into one character. While it may have proved confusing for the king’s sister and daughter to share the name “Mary,” it was not a necessary solution to combine the historical sisters of Margaret and Mary Tudor.
It is short sighted to disregard the importance of the factual marriages of these two princesses since the drama of later seasons would theoretically require the use of the sisters’ descendents, Mary Stuart of Scotland and Lady Jane Grey.
Or will both of these important historical ladies be omitted because the audience might confuse them with Henry’s daughter Mary and wife Jane? Surely if a solution can be found for the name repetition a time period when practically every other nobleman was christened “Thomas,” (Thomas More, Thomas Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Howard, Thomas Boleyn) some solution can be found for similar repetition among female characters.
Henry VIII and His Six Wives to Elizabeth I – Royal Soap Opera
The Tudor period of history provides some of the most incredible stories of any age. Without making any changes to factual events there would be great potential for both drama and melodrama. Yet this television series seems to have a very low opinion of its target audience and attention capacity since the series claims to make changes for the sake of entertainment and audience understanding.
What changes really need to be made to the following story?
King dumps the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella in order to have sex and a son with a sexually adventurous lady-in-waiting. After changing the religion of a kingdom, having lifelong friends killed, divorcing his wife of twenty years, and disowning his only legitimate child, King murders said lady-in-waiting turned queen to marry a new lady-in-waiting, who promptly dies after giving birth to his only legitimate son.
King proceeds to have three more wives, each marriage having its own complications, until after being a lifelong womanizer he is cuckolded by his underage wife, who also happens to be the cousin of the wife he had executed. King leaves his final wife a widow, and she proceeds to marry the ambitious brother of a predecessor wife of the now deceased king…and on…and on…and on…with plenty of possibilities for dramatization.
