Testosterone and Tantrums: Showtime's The Tudors Fails to Impress

I was really looking forward to Showtime's The Tudors. After all, it's got all of the things that I do love in a fantastic costume drama: a stellar cast, sword fights and sex, and a tumultuous period of history to draw from. So why does the series leave me so cold?

I've given The Tudors several shots now to entertain and captivate me (I've seen various versions of the pilot over the last few months), but even after sitting through the series' second episode, I still can't wrap my head around what's missing from what's arguably one of the most expensive series ever created (10 episodes at roughly $38 million dollars, or so I've heard).

I think it all comes back down to HBO's Rome, which wrapped its series on Sunday. Now that series managed to find the right balance between salaciousness and serious drama. Both series occur at critical moments in history, with corrupt politicians, immature leaders, and lawlessness the bon mots of the day. Yet while Rome managed to strike a chord in me that made me eager to catch up with the exploits of Vorenus and Pullo, Atia and Anthony, The Tudors continues to leave me wanting to change the channel.

I will say that The Tudors is gorgeous to look at and it has a first-rate cast in Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sam Neill, Jeremy Northam, Henry Cavill, Callum Blue, Natalie Dormer, and Henry Czerny, but (in the first few episodes anyway), the series seems to stick to the same basic formula: Henry (Rhys Meyers) has sex with lots of people, declares war on someone, plays some sports (jousting, wrestling, tennis!), and someone dies. It's clear where the series is going for anyone familiar with the basics of English history (off with 'er head!) or Henry's numerous dalliances.

It all feels rather static, especially compared with the highly stylized messiness of Rome, with its intricate layers and complex, three-dimensional characters. I find it extremely hard to feel sympathetic towards Henry, a preening rock star of a king prone to trashing his bedroom and sleeping with anything that moves. In fact, there isn't that character who guides you through this story (or whom you can associate with, like plebs Vorenus and Pullo): Henry is too tyrannically spoiled, Wolsey (Neill) too manipulative, More (Northam) too icily detached.

Instead, I found myself looking at the prettiness of the spectacle, which ends up feeling like a case of style over substance, with nothing much holding it together, unfortunately. There's nothing remotely enthralling about The Tudors, and with as electric a star as Rhys Meyers as your lead (and a king as gruesomely infamous as Henry Tudor), isn't that a terrible, terrible shame?

Sadly, The Tudors is being sent to my television Tower of London, never to return to my screen.

The Tudors premieres Sunday night at 10 pm ET/PT on Showtime. A sneak preview of the first two episodes can be found here.

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Jace is an LA-based television development and acquisitions junior exec who watches way too much television for his own good and would love a TiVo for every room in the house. (He’s halfway there.) His blog, Televisionary, can be found at televisionary.blogspot.com.

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