Which New Cable Show about Powerful Men Has the Best Sex, Gore, Incest and More?
Dynastic succession is so hot right now! Or at least, that's what you might think from taking a gander at a slate of new TV offerings. Showtime's The Borgias (Sunday, 9 pm), Starz's Camelot (tonight, 10 pm), HBO's Game of Thrones (April 17th, 9 pm) and the Reelz Channels The Kennedys (Sunday, 8pm) are all about powerful men fighting for power and the strife, bodice ripping, screwing, sword fighting, and fur wearing that goes along with it. (Fine, the Kennedys didn't do so much fur wearing and only conducted sword fights with their anatomical swords, but otherwise, lots in common!) Despite all the similarities, as Studio 60 and 30 Rock proved (if Armageddon and Deep Impact did not), not every show covers the same material in the same way: Some shows just do graphic sex scenes between a powerful man and his courtesan better than others, you know? So, to help you distinguish between these series, we've identified which show is best at what. After all, not all gratuitous nudity is created equal, and you shouldn't have to hypothesize about which new premium cable show has the most of it. Check out the slideshow and wonder no more.
Most Graphic Sex
Graphic sex, the reason to pay for premium cable! Lots of boinking goes down on all of these shows, but it's Game of Thrones's commitment to doggy-style and orgies that puts it over Camelot's banging against some rocks, The Borgias May-December screwing, and The Kennedys many flirtations.
Sweetest Incest
If we were looking for the show with the most incest, Game would be the clear winner: not only are a brother and sister passionately boinking, another brother creepily assesses his sister's rack. But it's not quantity, it's quality that counts. Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia have a very intense, slightly pervy, overly loving conundrum on their, uh, laps. In the early episodes, the pair have not yet consummated the sibling relationship but, as historical rumor has it, they soon will.
Best Pillow Talk
No contest. Camelot's Eva Green (playing Morgan) screams the following to her new ally, King Lot played by James Purefoy, while they're, uh, sealing the deal: "Say my name!" "Morgan!" "Who will I be?" "Queen of the realm!" "What will you give me?" "Undying loyalty!" "Swear your fealty!" "Swear yours to me!" "swear to me!" "I swear!"
Most Gratuitous Nudity
We don't mean to knock The Borgias, because it has a totally respectable amount of boobage for a premium show, but does it have its lead actresses take her top off for no reason? No, no it does not. So hats off to Camelot, which sneaks a nameless naked girl into the show's first 10 minutes, and then has Eva Green take a walk in the dark, sans dress, and also to Game of Thrones, which has Peter Dinklage cavorting with four naked girls as a sort of character introduction.
Best Cursing
Game of Throne's Viserys Targaryen explains to his sister how he is going to get an army together: "I would let his whole tribe fuck you, all 40,000 of them, and his horses too, if that's what it took."
Most Loyal Relative
What would you do for your family? Would you steal them an election? Would you kill someone? Would you steal them election and kill someone? You would if you were Cesare Borgia, a good hearted fellow who helps his father (Jeremy Irons) buy the papacy and then poisons and kills any one who tries to hurt him. Seriously though, he makes all of this seem very protective and caring.
Gruesomest Sword Fight
The Borgias use dainty little rapiers, the fellas on Camelot use hefty looking broadswords, but only on Game of Thrones do swords cut people's intestines out. Compared to that, the prickmanship of even the Kennedys is nothing.
Most Fearsomely Ambitious Woman
Katie Holmes's Jackie is stuck dealing with her accent and The Borgias' ladies take a back seat to their men. The queen in Games is totally a brother-screwing schemer, but even she has not harnessed the forces of darkness. Nope, Camelot's Morgan (Green) wants to rule so badly she regularly poltergeists herself into another body. Also, did you hear her pillow talk?
Dullest Opening Credits
While credit sequences have all but disappeared from network television, where 30 seconds means ad money, they are flourishing on premium cable. Thus, all four of these shows have openings that run for well over two minutes. The stand out is The Borgias, in which renaissance portraits are painted in, though Game of Thrones has some nicely involved 3-D maps. The Kennedys has a snoozy clip reel, but it's still more interesting than Camelot's gussied up stock footage, featuring horses, blood, and some swords.
Shadiest Succession
Every single one of these shows is about dynastic succession, and they're all shady. The Kennedys ballot finessing is infamous, King Arthur doesn't even know he's an heir until he's handed the throne, and everyone in Game wants the throne. But none of these folks are as mercenary and clever, as Jeremy Iron's corrupt Rodrigo Borgia, who buys off all the right people to gain the papacy, and even finds time to start screwing a new, much younger woman while he's at it.
Poufiest Hair
In the first episode of Game a pair of brothers joke about one's mop top - he needs a haircut. Jamie Campbell Bower's Arthur has got a permanent state of bed head, and Cesare Borgia clearly lived in an age before hair gel. And yet The Kennedys' Greg Kinner's, as JFK, has got the largest 'do of all, a soft football floating above his forehead.
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