The Tudors

[mariness]

I did not, as it happened, watch the Golden Globes last night primarily because I couldn't figure out how to turn on the TV. That is, I could get the TV on, and I could get it to play DVDs or the Wii, but get it to recognize that yes, yes, we do have a nice digital tuner that in theory provides us unlimited access to the limited broadcast stations

Comments

[winterbadger]

it all had the feel, again, of unnecessary sex scene

I do not believe that the producers feel that there is such a thing. :-)

I've watched parts of the first season and, having passing familiarity with the Tudors (the early Stuarts were my real focus at university, hence my choice of icon), I was torn between hating the series and liking bits of it. Anything that causes people with a good graphics department to create an image of the vanished Whitehall Palace can't be entirely a bad thing. A popular TV series that actually goes to some effort to depict the FIeld of Cloth of Gold can't be entirely evil.

[winterbadger]

Although, of course, as with many thing in the series, they screw up the timeline WRT Whitehall, which was Wolsey's York Place palace until 1530 when Henry schwacked him and took all his swag.

[mariness]

The first season was really, really historically wrong, and screwed up the timeline absolutely everywhere. Whitehall didn't bother me as much as the screwup of the timelines of Bessie Blount, Mary Boleyn and Anne Boleyn. Making things worse, the historical changes generally made the storyline less dramatic -- particularly with the whole plot with the king's sister, to which I could only watch, gaping, with WHY? never leaving my head. It was distracting.

I don't think it was entirely evil, because, well, lots of good looking people, and if the costumes were in general completely wrong they at least looked shiny, and the fourth season showed that the writers had taken some criticisms to heart.

[winterbadger]

Yeah, one of the things that constantly amazes me is why writers make changes to historical events, or completely invent storylines, when what really happened was MORE dramatic and exciting.

I think the one exception to that which I can think of was in Elizabeth, also written by Michael Hirst, in which Walsingham is portrayed as Marie de Guise's lover and murderer, which is certainly hugely dramatic but also such complete and utter Hollywood BS that it made me hate the film. Honestly, if I had known that The Tudors was written by the same person who did Elizabeth, I would never have watched even the first season.