» The Tudors - The Complete First Season

The Tudors - The Complete First Season Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: OUTSTANDING
Comment: Once you start watching this series, which contains ten 55 minute episodes on three discs, you're tempted to watch the entire series in one sitting. At our house, we did it in two nights.
I purchased an additional set as a Christmas gift and it was well received.
Henry VIII was a son-of-a-gun and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers does an outstanding job proving that. As a matter of fact, the entire cast does a fabulous job.
Can't wait to watch Season 2 and 3.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: fabulous!!!
Comment: When I bought this used, I expected some scratches. But this was like brand new, no scratches, no problems. I will buy from these guys again! Very impressed!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Completely Awesome!!!!!
Comment: I had The Tudors on my wish list for sometime and finally ordered it. I watched the whole 1st season in 2 sittings it was that good. I don't understand the people who did not like The Tudors because it was not historically correct, So what! It's entertainment people!! It truely entertained me. I found myself thinking about it well after watching it. I put the second season on pre-order and it should be here today or tomorrow. I know I'm going to tear into it right away. The only problem is once I finish the 2nd season, I will have a LONG wait for the 3rd.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Uninteresting.
Comment: season 1 was plagued with horribly dialog, simplistic plotting and storylines, weak acting, and a lack of complexity that was overwhelming at times.

While interesting concepts were introduced from time to time these were quickly forgotten and the show relayed on what premium networks have focused on for years juvenile excuses for characters to have sex with one another. Rome had this as well but at least it managed to have an interesting story line to go along with it.


The lone bright spot of that season was Sam Neil, who quite frankly acted circles around everyone else.

That being said I have heard that Season 2 is somewhat of an improvement. I personally don't have the stomach for it but anyone even mildly interested in the show I would advise to start there because you are barking up the wrong tree with the first season.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Henry VIII in Never Land
Comment: Showtime's obviously expensive production of "The Tudors" has got its first season into circulation as a set of DVDs. I have seen some advertising on this, and my first reaction was that any series portraying Henry VIII as a lean man with black hair can't be all good. The truth turns out to be worse. It would take a few days of solid research to plumb the depths of this historically ludicrous series.

The fact of the matter is this: if you expect to learn much about Tudor history, don't turn to this historical travesty. Let's start with the most basic fact: Henry VIII had red hair. This is no deep secret; it is one of the best-known facts in English history. The British have certainly got it right in their TV series - how did the people responsible for "The Tudors" miss it? Amazingly, the right actor was right under their noses: Steven Waddington, who played the (3rd) Duke of Buckingham, is not only red-haired, but looks a heck of a lot more like Henry than Rhys Meyers and also has more the right build for the role. Rhys Meyers is certainly a delicious bit of eye candy, and often gets down to at least 1 button below the top of his shorts, but he is far too lithe to be a convincing Henry. Henry's eating habits had already given him something of a paunch by the time he was getting the hots for Anne Boleyn.

Before we continue with the bad news, we can consider the good. First of all, the sets and costumes are very good. True, Rhys Meyers is rather less overdressed than Henry VIII typically was. But overall, the sumptuousness of Tudor dress and architecture is well shown and gives the series a gorgeous look that makes us want to believe there's some attempt here at historical accuracy - which there isn't.

The acting in the series is professional if not exactly thrilling. Even Sam Neill, as Cardinal Woolsey (a name various spelt in the sources) seems fairly subdued. It's a good cast - just not a great one.

The script is fairly well-written - if you can ignore the numerous verbal howlers, usually terms not current in the 16th Century. The worst is probably the reference of the Field of the Cloth of Gold as a "summit". This is a term that had no currency until the later 20th Century and sounds ridiculous in the mouth of Woolsey. There are other solecisms of this sort, but not quite so awful. In general, the patois of the English nobility hasn't got any sort of Shakespearian feel to it, and sounds far too modern. Various epithets, including the "f" word - a favorite of the vocabulary-challenged, were unlikely to have been in use almost 600 years ago. We don't at all hear the favorite of the times, "'sblood". It would have helped if the producers had had a competent research department.

Historical dramas of course have to manufacture a lot - particularly conversations that took place behind closed doors. Manufacturing lies to replace well-known historical facts, however, is far beyond the Pale. There is the matter of Henry's sister Margaret. Now, as it happens, Henry had 2 sisters: Mary and Margaret. Mary married the King of France and later Charles Brandon - by whom she became the grandmother of Queen Jane Grey. Margaret married the King of Scotland and became the mother of James V and grandmother of King James I (and VI). In the Tudors, there is only 1 sister, Margaret, who marries the King of Portugal and then Charles Brandon. There is no excuse for this wanton perversion of historical fact.

At the end of the first season, Woolsey is arrested and conveyed to the Tower, where he commits suicide by slitting his throat. What an absolute insult to history and to the man. Woolsey was indeed arrested, but died of his illnesses before reaching the Tower. As you may know, the Roman Church takes a dim view (to put it mildly) of suicide, and no good Catholic - much less a prince of the church, would ever consider it. The version in "The Tudors" is not only a lie, it is a damned lie.

The series goes on like this, casting truth to perdition and lying about the Tudors and their courtiers at every opportunity. The very name of the series is a lie - how can it be about "the Tudors" when it ignores Owain Twdwr and barely mentions Henry VII? The rise of the dynasty is a dramatic tale that somehow gets overshadowed by Henry VIII's highjinks. I had hopes, when I first heard that this series was coming out, that it would have the good sense to dramatize the background to Henry VIII's reign. Apparently they would rather ignore the background and lie about the reign.

Well, as long as you realize this is almost a complete fiction, enjoy it. It's a good bit of mindless entertainment, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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