I love it when TV can be both very, very good as well as good for you. Such is the case with a logjam of terrific historical dramas competing for attention this Sunday. Two of them had me fighting back tears (and occasionally losing the fight), and then there’s Showtime’s The Tudors, that stimulating royal tonic of sex, religion and other courtly intrigues. Not a lot of boo-hooing while watching this Henry VIII romp, but rarely a dull moment, either.The quality honors this weekend go to HBO and PBS. HBO for concluding its remarkable John Adams miniseries with an episode of quiet, pained humanity as the nation’s second president (Paul Giamatti) goes into retirement with about as much grace—which is to say, very little—as he conducted himself in the political arena. Grumpy, discontent, impatient to the end and convinced he’ll be forgotten by time, John never lets up. There’s a terrific scene in which he’s invited, in his 90s, to view the portrai...
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Jeers to Jonathan Rhys Meyers for his one-note performance on The Tudors. No, make that two-note: As King Henry VIII, he swings between pouting and rage with nothing in between. Such a limited emotional palette suited Rhys Meyers fine when he played a shallow sociopath in Woody Allen's Match Point, but it quickly grows dull to watch on a weekly TV series. (And does anybody else think it's historically improbable that Henry is prettier than any of his wives so far?) In the bodice-ripper's second season, the truly regal presence of Peter O'Toole — as the pope, no less — only makes Rhys Meyers look more plebian. His work's unfit for a king.• For more Cheers & Jeers, check out the new vodcast.• Share your own raves and rants about other shows on the Reader Cheers & Jeers discussion board.• We may feature your Cheer or Jeer on TVGuide.com or in TV Guide magazine!
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In The Tudors' (Sundays at 9 pm/ET, Showtime) steamy second season, Henry VIII becomes a royal pain for Anne Boleyn — and the pope.King Henry VIII is all grown up and has politics — and sex — on his mind. In the second season of Showtime's bodice ripper The Tudors, Jonathan Rhys Meyers relates to the monarch's new maturity. "I like growing older," he muses, sitting in his trailer at Dublin's Ardmore Studios, puffing on a Marlboro Light. "I just turned 30, and it does inform the way I play Henry, who is much more mature and less erratic. I've changed over the past year."
Ask him how, and the angry young man reemerges: "It's none of your business." True, Rhys Meyers had a rough 12 months, including a drunken brush with authorities at the Dublin airport, days before the death of his mother. And The Tudor
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Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) will star opposite Julianne Moore in Shelter, a supernatural thriller helmed by Swedes Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein (Storm).... Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer and Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) have joined Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, in which U.S. marshals (Leo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo) investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the insane. Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson and Michelle Williams costar.... Dimension has bought the rights to Locke & Key, Joe Hill's graphic novel about three children who are the caretakers of a magical mansion. Hill is the son of Stephen King.... World Wrestling Entertainment has found a tag-team partner in 20th Century Fox, inking a that gives the studio dibs on pics headlined by the org's wrestlers. — Mickey O'Connor
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Three good things about the writers' strike:1) No more Bionic Woman to disappoint us.2) Pepito the Wonder Chihuahua gets more "me" time.3) More chances to catch up on kick-ass cable shows on DVD!And let me tell you, that last one is a biggie, considering that a few cable shows I had to skip out on because of too many TiVo conflicts have just hit the shelves. One of them being FX's stellar, chilling Damages, which features quite possibly the single greatest performance of the last season. Is Golden Globe winner Glenn Close's Manhattan litigator Patty Hewes ingenious or pure evil? I'm not sure yet, but she is delicious nonetheless and I am having a hoot finding out.Centered around an Enron-type class-action suit against billionaire Arthur Frobisher — played with demonic menace by Ted Danson — the show should be about the case, since nobody does trial-angst better than Close (see Jagged Edge). But instead of courtrooms, we get boardrooms and some seriously twisted detours, co...
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