Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
Bloody Tales Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
6 Episodes 2013 - 2013
Episode 1
Executions
45 mins
In Bloody Tales - Eexcutions, Tudor historian Dr Suzannah Lipscomb and journalist Joe Crowley team up to investigate three extraordinary stories.
Episode 2
Murder
45 mins
Atilla the Hun, who turned his tribal confederation into a superpower constituting the major threat to tribute-blackmailed Rome and Constantinople, suffocated in his own blood during his wedding night, but was that just the price of an (uncharacteristic) excessive party at ripe age, or murder, and if so how and by which enemy? - Shakespeare's play will always tar Richard III as England's cruelest king, notably for the murder of his kin-predecessor's young sons, which he imprisoned in the Tower fortress prison, but were they murdered, on his or other orders, victims of illness and/or primitive medicine, or did at least one survive? - Power-hungry Spanish renaissance Borgia-pope Alexander's beloved illegitimate son and general Juan was stabbed while wandering in a red lantern district of Rome and dumped in the Tiber, but who ordered his death, and why? Perhaps his jealous brother and successor, cardinal Cesare, or the major regional rival family Colonna, whose main castle his papal army besieged shortly before?
Episode 3
Avengers
45 mins
Who fatally shot Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, without trial, after his capture by partisans, and why? What happened to the 'treasure' he carried with him, or was that the motive, perhaps documents that could discredit Churchill? - Was the most famous highwayman in Cromwell's republic executed as a traitor just for robbing notably parliamentarians, or executed for stubbornly proclaiming to remain an royalist, or did the Lord Protector carry a personal grudge beyond law? - Who laid the bomb that nearly blow up Napoleon Bonaparte, then Fisrt Consul, in his coach, and why? Did his security minister Fouché play a two-faced part?
Episode 4
Monsters
50 mins
Roman emperor Caius 'Caligula' started his reign popular and benevolent, but soon turned into a hated bloody, sadistic tyrant, plausibly inspired by predecessor Tiberius's self-indulgent excesses on Capri island, and ended murdered by his Praetorian torturer. Gilles de Ray, an extremely wealthy war hero with Joan of Arc from the expulsion of the English, owned many castles, mostly in Western France, indulging in excesses beyond his means, including serial lust murders of dozens of chorister boys, until he was arrested for the murder of a priest. Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory, heiress to an immense fortune, was executed for the unlawful execution of dozens of maids, but a case can be made that her trial was fixed so her heirs and political rivals could take over her lands, power and income.
Episode 5
Dark Arts
45 mins
Gravediggers, witches and goat riders are the focus of Bloody Tales - Dark Arts where Tudor historian Dr Suzannah Lipscomb and journalist Joe Crowley venture into the unknown.
Episode 6
Tyrants
45 mins
Historian Dr Suzannah Lipscomb and journalist Joe Crowley team up to investigate three of history's most infamous tyrants.