The White Queen, why it just all got too awful and why I just couldn't take any more of that chin
I haven't posted about this travesty for a few weeks because quite frankly, it's so laughably awful I'd have been here forever if I'd pointed out even just the major things which just made it unwatchable. That said, despite the thing just getting worse and worse I stuck it out until the infamous Malmsey incident, which I think was episode 7 or 8 and then it just got too much. I only made it that far because I wanted to give Aneurin Barnard a chance to show me Richard and he wasn't too bad, but Anne was in most of his scenes and by episode 5 I just couldn't stand her. How anyone can make Anne Neville obnoxious and unlikeable is beyond me, but Faye-whatever-her-name-is managed it.
Things which were most stupid/frustrating/utterly nauseating since I last posted about this were Henry VI being PERSONALLY smothered by Edward IV , accompanied by George and Richard (W.T.F??!!) and Elizabeth Woodville's youngest newborn son being 'miraculously' saved in the hands of Margaret Beaufort, where all that was missing was mystical flappy angels and some floaty choral OOOOAAAOOOO music (double W.T.F?!!!). I actually think that was the moment I mentally threw my hands in the air and checked out. Margaret Beaufort as some kind of saintly healer? Are you joking?
The acting got worse, the props got more and more modern and what did it for me in that regard was the old cliche of the solid wooden wheel made from planks. Aaaaggghhh. Barnet was laughable, a skirmish in a bit of misty bog with about 10 people, Tewkesbury, the spectacle I was really looking forward to, was heard but not seen, being told through the eyes of Marguerite D'Anjou and Anne "this is my one expression and it's petulant and whiney" Neville. What got me especially was that the story had them take sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey, instead of Malvern Priory, so that when the Lancastrian nobles who ACTUALLY took sanctuary there after the battle had to be dragged out of some other, nameless church. Well, just the Duke of Somerset acually, a character we met for 2 minutes before he got offed having lost the battle of Tewkesbury. Changing something without reason so something which actually happened had to be changed too? I ground my teeth. AND FOR THE LOVE OF HISTORY WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHY ALL THESE PEOPLE ONLY SEEM TO HAVE ONE SET OF CLOTHES?!! The upside of that being I didn't have to stare at a new manifestation of the costume department's massacre of 15th century costume every week, but what I would have given for just ONE set of gothic plate armour. I've seen plenty of it in my lifetime, on dedicated re-enactors, but no, TWQ prefers its king and dukes in something which looks like they raided the saucepan cupboard and took a hammer to the contents. Badly.
Edward got fat, then he seemed to get thin again, then fat, then thin, they obviously had some seriously good Weightwatchers scheme back then, that or the continuity was as terrible as the rest of it. The acting got worse still, the interpretaion of historical events more laughable and irritating by turns and when we got to meet the bastard Stanley, they picked an actor I cannot stand at the best of times. Excellent. A character I hate played by an actor who sets my teeth on edge in everything he's done except Sherlock, married to another character I hate (the Beaufort Bitch), who is played by an actress whose jaw seems to get more Hapsburg with every passing episode and whose smugness makes me want to slap her.
So I stopped watching, the heaping of awful on dreadful on plain old bloody abysmal just got too much. I hung in there until 1476 but I really don't want to see the events of the late 1470's and how they handle the events following Edward's death and Richard's reign because I have a feeling I'd just explode and the thought of the disgusting smugness of the awful actress playing the Beaufort Bitch when her brat is crowned king at the end is just not something my stomach can take and I have a pretty strong stomach.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I waved the whole mess goodbye and this Sunday evening was unmarred by my muttering and seething...until I saw a review about Philippa Gregory's new book, "The White Princess", about Edward IV's eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, which held a line which went something like, "Mourning the death of her lover, Richard III...."
AAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Things which were most stupid/frustrating/utterly nauseating since I last posted about this were Henry VI being PERSONALLY smothered by Edward IV , accompanied by George and Richard (W.T.F??!!) and Elizabeth Woodville's youngest newborn son being 'miraculously' saved in the hands of Margaret Beaufort, where all that was missing was mystical flappy angels and some floaty choral OOOOAAAOOOO music (double W.T.F?!!!). I actually think that was the moment I mentally threw my hands in the air and checked out. Margaret Beaufort as some kind of saintly healer? Are you joking?
The acting got worse, the props got more and more modern and what did it for me in that regard was the old cliche of the solid wooden wheel made from planks. Aaaaggghhh. Barnet was laughable, a skirmish in a bit of misty bog with about 10 people, Tewkesbury, the spectacle I was really looking forward to, was heard but not seen, being told through the eyes of Marguerite D'Anjou and Anne "this is my one expression and it's petulant and whiney" Neville. What got me especially was that the story had them take sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey, instead of Malvern Priory, so that when the Lancastrian nobles who ACTUALLY took sanctuary there after the battle had to be dragged out of some other, nameless church. Well, just the Duke of Somerset acually, a character we met for 2 minutes before he got offed having lost the battle of Tewkesbury. Changing something without reason so something which actually happened had to be changed too? I ground my teeth. AND FOR THE LOVE OF HISTORY WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHY ALL THESE PEOPLE ONLY SEEM TO HAVE ONE SET OF CLOTHES?!! The upside of that being I didn't have to stare at a new manifestation of the costume department's massacre of 15th century costume every week, but what I would have given for just ONE set of gothic plate armour. I've seen plenty of it in my lifetime, on dedicated re-enactors, but no, TWQ prefers its king and dukes in something which looks like they raided the saucepan cupboard and took a hammer to the contents. Badly.
Edward got fat, then he seemed to get thin again, then fat, then thin, they obviously had some seriously good Weightwatchers scheme back then, that or the continuity was as terrible as the rest of it. The acting got worse still, the interpretaion of historical events more laughable and irritating by turns and when we got to meet the bastard Stanley, they picked an actor I cannot stand at the best of times. Excellent. A character I hate played by an actor who sets my teeth on edge in everything he's done except Sherlock, married to another character I hate (the Beaufort Bitch), who is played by an actress whose jaw seems to get more Hapsburg with every passing episode and whose smugness makes me want to slap her.
So I stopped watching, the heaping of awful on dreadful on plain old bloody abysmal just got too much. I hung in there until 1476 but I really don't want to see the events of the late 1470's and how they handle the events following Edward's death and Richard's reign because I have a feeling I'd just explode and the thought of the disgusting smugness of the awful actress playing the Beaufort Bitch when her brat is crowned king at the end is just not something my stomach can take and I have a pretty strong stomach.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I waved the whole mess goodbye and this Sunday evening was unmarred by my muttering and seething...until I saw a review about Philippa Gregory's new book, "The White Princess", about Edward IV's eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, which held a line which went something like, "Mourning the death of her lover, Richard III...."
AAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!