A Lusty Royal Saga of Power and Passion
Showtime's The Tudors
Is this Henry VIII or Henry the Sixpack? Showtime's robustly entertaining 10-part historical drama
The Tudors (premiering April 1 at 10 pm/ET) presents the young king as a hunka-hunka burning royal who often has trouble deciding whether to rule with his head or his heart — or some other organ. The show's theme song could be (apologies to
Camelot) "I Wonder Who the King Is Doing Tonight."
He's played with riveting intensity and bristling sensuality by Irish-born Jonathan Rhys Meyers — perhaps the only actor to successfully impersonate fabled royalty and Elvis "the King" Presley. This Henry the horndog is fueled by lust: for war, for power, for a son and, wife aside, for female conquests, including the notorious Anne Boleyn (a sly, kittenish Natalie Dormer).
The Tudors frames this legendary love match as a calculated chess game: Anne teasing and manipulating Henry at her father's devious orders, with the goal of driving a wedge between the king and his cunning adviser, Cardinal Wolsey (the terrific Sam Neill).
Political intrigues, both international and inside the Tudor court, frequently distract Henry, sending him into fearsome tantrums alleviated by macho games at bloody jousting tournaments. Even 16th-century boys will be boys.
The appeal of these sorts of freewheeling docudramas is to show us the highborn getting low-down, and to that end, The Tudors doesn't disappoint. Less lurid than HBO's Rome, yet still quite the pageant of pomp and friskiness, it's a throwback to the old-fashioned miniseries of yore, spiced with pay-cable frankness. It may not be one for the history books, but methinks Henry might even enjoy.
What a World!
Armchair travel has never been so ravishing. Watch in awe as the 11 hours of Planet Earth (Sundays at 8 pm/ET through April 22 on the Discovery Channel) reveal their many wonders.
The series takes us from pole to pole (which means baby polar bears and, naturally, penguins), with astonishing aerials of mountain peaks and incredible high-definition images from the ocean depths, revealing rare glimpses of life in deserts and lush forests along the way. It's an ecological and technological marvel.
In narration as crisp, inviting and detailed as the magnificent photography, Sigourney Weaver often remarks on how long it took the film crews to capture these sights, some for the first time. Their patience paid off. I can't remember a more gorgeous spectacle of wildlife and habitats, with exotic slices of life and death, from bizarre mating rituals to the brutal dance of predators and prey. Planet Earth is truly something to behold.
