I had a dorky friend who used a very bad pun to describe his experience with the show. He said that he was "tutored on the tudors." Yeah. This is what happens when you spend all your time underground and cut off from society... Anyways. Really this title is more than just a bad joke. It's actually somewhat inaccurate to the show because there isn't much to be learned from King Henry VIII from Showtime's historical drama. Right from the start, Michael Hirst was quoted to say "Showtime commissioned me to write an entertainment, a soap opera, and not history ... And we wanted people to watch it." So it's a very similar problem with The Social Network or The Hurt Locker; both of which were criticized for being inaccurate to it's respective subject material. I've always been a firm believer in research and accuracy in writing. It might not always matter to the dramatic arc of the story, but spotting environmental or historical inaccuracies take me out of the fiction quite strongly. Even if I didn't spot stuff like that right off the bat, a piece of fiction that doesn't stand up to later scrutiny can also greatly depreciate the value. It's a bit of a personal preference. But it's an ideal that I've always believed in as I always encourage writers to achieve greatness in every aspect of fiction, even in elements that some, or many, wouldn't consider "important".
So really, despite my obvious love for the show (it's intro is in my featured intro section after all), this is a difficult review to write because every instinct in me tells me that the historical inaccuracies do not matter. But, unfortunately, it does and that's one thing I have to note. There isn't very much educational value to The Tudors. The accuracy of the character's personalities to their historical figures is one thing that's praised about the show, but the events of the plot differed greatly and some character relationships were completely fictional.
Well, on to the writing itself. I must note that this review will only cover the first two seasons of The Tudors and a part two will come later. But the dramatic writing of the first two seasons is masterful. It's honestly one of the best shows I've seen on modern TV. Really what it comes down to is a thorough but respectful examination of a medieval royal court. In a world where religious hypocrisy and rampant narcissism is almost rewarded, it's very hard to not judge. In the hands of a lesser writer, we would have gotten the view of King Henry's count from a modern progressive lens. That would have been a very cheap way of writing since it doesn't provide us with any real insight and reinforce modern western ideals that we all understand well already. Michael Hirst and his writing staff marvelously avoids that pitfall and gives us a world within it's own context. That sounds rudimentary but it's actually something that's very hard to achieve in historical fiction. At the same time, the show isn't just an idle re-enactment. It still carries a theme, and the story still serves a dramatic purpose. It's a very fine balance and what it mainly comes down to is how it gets you to feel for the characters without excusing their actions.
I hated Anne Bolyn for how immature she is but, by the time of her execution, I grew to understand how her environment doomed her from the start. I hate King Henry for being a tyrant, but I see his human insecurities that translated into a ruthless royal brat. I hate Cardinal Woolsey for embodying corruption of the Catholic church but I'm sorry about his eventual fate. (And honestly one of the best redemption scenes I've ever seen).
Sometimes the motivation to be respectful holds other historical shows back from becoming a worthwhile story. Hatfield & McCoy suffers due to this very specific issue. The Tudors circumvent this is by focusing on it's characters and bringing out as much dimensions as naturally possible. Michael Hirst grabs you and says, hey look, these people you're watching are absolutely horrible people. But there's more to them than just that. You don't need to sympathize to understand and that's an approach that The Tudors took to heart from the first episode to the last.
However, if there is one complaint I have about the writing is that not all characters get equal treatment. I'm not referring to the amount of screen time, I'm referring to the development. Throughout the first season, some within of Henry's court were uninteresting characters and their plight were a little boring to sit through. The character of Thomas Tallis also feels tacked on as he merely served as a "normal" person in the court only to disappear when the writer loses interest in the character. It seems unfair to complain about boring characters in a historical fiction but it is very possible to have boring characters be or become interesting. So if there is one flaw in the writing, it'd be that Michael Hirst didn't give enough attention to some of his side characters. Who, fortunately, were either written out or actually developed in Season 2.
The amount of sex in the show can also get a little annoying to those who want to watch for the writing, but it doesn't get to Game of Throne's level as most of the sex fits in with the character and story. This helps give a greater purpose to these scenes while most other shows are just content on having them as filler (Littlefinger's prostitute scene anyone?...).
In conclusion, The Tudors is very close to a perfect show. It would have been nice to sit through a show that's more accurate than inaccurate with it's plot, but the drama is definitely compelling and some of the best downfall and redemption scenes in modern TV history can be experienced within just the first two seasons. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in quality writing.
Rating:
Great characters. Great scenes. And a show that doesn't judge but still has a point. The only thing that stops this show from being perfect is the historical inaccuracies with might not matter to many but is a blemish nonetheless.
