Reign
I've been watching Reign, which is ridiculous but kind of addictive. It's kind of like The Borgias, except with all the parts that made it legitimately quality left out, and all the parts that made it totally idtastic left in (except the incest, if that was the most idtastic part for you).
So out with the politics and the surprisingly thoughtful character portraits, and in with beautiful scenery, beautiful ridiculous entertainments (I think every episode so far (I've seen five) has had at least one fireworks show. I know they've all had at least one dance sequence), and beautiful costumes. Well, beautiful might not be the right word. Some of them are beautiful (and completely historically inaccurate), some of them are ridiculously eye-catching (and completely historically inaccurate, not just to 16th century France but to anything anyone has worn ever).
There is totally a scene where Prince Francis wears an emo turtleneck. But at least an emo turtleneck is something that someone might legitimately wear at some point in time, if not necessarily the Tudor era; one cannot say the same of many of Mary's dresses. For some reason she gets stuck with the weirdest dresses, although all the ladies-in-waiting have their moments.
(I am tragically hopeful that the show will eventually realize they can give the ladies-in-waiting plotlines that don't revolve around boys. They could have conflicts with each other that aren't about boys at all, even! This is probably a pipe dream. Most of the romances are not very interesting so far: Mary's romance with her fiance, Prince Francis, could be interesting if the writers tried to do something with the love vs. duty theme they have going, but so far they seem to think mentioning that there's a conflict counts as developing the theme.)
The show doesn't care about history at all. Not even slightly. It's so shameless about it that it's actually kind of charming. There is even a scene where they basically admit that the whole episode that just happened is complete historical bunk: the characters are like, "We're just going to forget this unfortunate diplomatic incident ever happened. AND SO WILL HISTORY."
Seriously, I'm not sure why they bothered tying this to history at all. All they needed to do to make it a fantasy was rename England, Scotland, and France. Albion, Scotia, and Gaul, and BOOM! AU fantasy universe with ridiculous clothes, there you go.
I'm not sure if the ridiculous prettinesss (or pretty ridiculousness) of everything will be enough to keep me watching, but so far I'm sort of hooked. Also appalled. A little bit enchanted? I will keep you posted on developments in the ridiculousness.
So out with the politics and the surprisingly thoughtful character portraits, and in with beautiful scenery, beautiful ridiculous entertainments (I think every episode so far (I've seen five) has had at least one fireworks show. I know they've all had at least one dance sequence), and beautiful costumes. Well, beautiful might not be the right word. Some of them are beautiful (and completely historically inaccurate), some of them are ridiculously eye-catching (and completely historically inaccurate, not just to 16th century France but to anything anyone has worn ever).
There is totally a scene where Prince Francis wears an emo turtleneck. But at least an emo turtleneck is something that someone might legitimately wear at some point in time, if not necessarily the Tudor era; one cannot say the same of many of Mary's dresses. For some reason she gets stuck with the weirdest dresses, although all the ladies-in-waiting have their moments.
(I am tragically hopeful that the show will eventually realize they can give the ladies-in-waiting plotlines that don't revolve around boys. They could have conflicts with each other that aren't about boys at all, even! This is probably a pipe dream. Most of the romances are not very interesting so far: Mary's romance with her fiance, Prince Francis, could be interesting if the writers tried to do something with the love vs. duty theme they have going, but so far they seem to think mentioning that there's a conflict counts as developing the theme.)
The show doesn't care about history at all. Not even slightly. It's so shameless about it that it's actually kind of charming. There is even a scene where they basically admit that the whole episode that just happened is complete historical bunk: the characters are like, "We're just going to forget this unfortunate diplomatic incident ever happened. AND SO WILL HISTORY."
Seriously, I'm not sure why they bothered tying this to history at all. All they needed to do to make it a fantasy was rename England, Scotland, and France. Albion, Scotia, and Gaul, and BOOM! AU fantasy universe with ridiculous clothes, there you go.
I'm not sure if the ridiculous prettinesss (or pretty ridiculousness) of everything will be enough to keep me watching, but so far I'm sort of hooked. Also appalled. A little bit enchanted? I will keep you posted on developments in the ridiculousness.