The Tudors: Cram Session
Showtime will air one episode of its 2007 histori-soap, The Tudors, every night at 10 p.m. for the next nine nights, beginning Sunday, May 27. A first season marathon of the once-only-a-mini-series show, a sexy revision of one of history's worst husbands, should solidify its current fan base and draw in even more of an audience. Plus, the last episode of the season will air the night before Emmy voting begins, so maybe Showtime wants to sway the voters in favor of its critically raved drama with this marathon.
The series depicts 16th-century, notoriously raucous King Henry VIII of England as he flits through his romantic - over his political - life. Henry's primary dilemma is to bequeath a male heir for the throne. And, unfortunately for her, his first wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, cannot succeed at such a task (instead bequeathing the future, spiteful Lady Mary). So Henry winds up falling into the bed of her attendant, Anne Boleyn, a sumptuous tart who could possibly have better luck with that pesky male heir problem. Political turmoil ensues - divorce wasn't as popular of an option back then as it is now - and results in England's break with the Catholic Church. Of course, Anne failed to produce a male heir as well (just the future Queen Elizabeth), so Henry beheaded her and found Jane Seymour, who eventually gave birth to future King Edward IV. Henry's complicated love life, interwoven with definitive political complexities, gives new meaning to the title and idea of soap opera All My Children.
Jonathan Rhys Myers stars as Henry, in French-cut shirts, alongside Natalie Dormer as Anne, in loose and billowing fabrics that plead to be removed. The two steam up the screen with Myers's forcefully sadistic snarl matching Dormer's coy, yet vacant eyes. She wants him to devour her, and the audience takes voyeuristic pleasure in watching him - and then them - do it. Although the immaculately opulent series mostly lacks depth, as its focus on the lustful and rash Henry in all his costumed glory attests, there's a certain joy in watching rich, beautiful, well-adorned people have sex that not even the primmest, most Catherine-of-Aragon-est critic can deny.
With this nine-night marathon, now everyone can relive the orgasmic pleasure of the new sudsy and sultry primetime-soap, The Tudors, in condensed, multiple-orgasm fashion before Showtime begins its second season later this year.