“You think you know a story, but you only know how it ends; to get to the heart of the story, you have to go back to the beginning.” So it is said at the beginning of the opening credits for Showtime’s new series, “The Tudors.”
I know, I know: new is relative. The show premiered on April 1st – in fact, it was the highest rated debut for any original series in the history of the network – so I’m probably one of the last people to get around to investigating this show, but I’ve finally had the chance to check out the first few episodes, and lemme tell ya, it ain’t bad.
Now, of course, by “it ain’t bad,” I first and foremost mean that it’s full of sex and violence, two things that tend to make any show worthy of investigation by a red-blooded American male. Understand that I’m not looking to dumb it down by claiming that those are the only two reasons to check it out; it’s just that there are no less than four sex scenes in the first episode alone, so it’s not as though you can really ignore that particular aspect of the series.
The series – intended to run for only 10 episodes – explores the early years of the reign of King Henry VIII of England. Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as the King, and he does a fine job, but the real star of the show is Sam Neill, who plays Cardinal Wolsey; his performance might not be up the the standards set by Orson Welles and John Gielgud in their respective turns in “A Man for All Seasons,” but there’s little question that he raises the level of class within “The Tudors” considerably. The stand-out amongst the more fresh faces of the cast is Steven Waddington, who plays the Duke of Buckingham.
The show looks gorgeous, flows along at a rapid clip, and it’s extremely easy to get caught up in it; I’m not always swept up in period pieces so immediately, but “The Tudors” captures your attention from the start. Yes, as the narration freely admits, you do know how this story ends…but the events leading to that point are not quite so well-documented in film or on television. Given the the explicit nature, you won’t be seeing this show up on a necessary-viewing list for any high school history classes, but “The Tudors” continues to build Showtime’s slate of high-quality original programming to levels which should have HBO concerned.
UPDATE: So much for that 10-episode plan. Showtime has renewed the series for a second season. Sweet, does this mean it’s time to start making shit up?
