Thursday, October 1, 2009

Tudors season brings new queen

Tudors season brings new queen





There's a moment of amazing grace and subtlety in tonight's third-season premiere of The Tudors, when Jona-than Rhys Meyers' petulant, moody and dangerous King Henry VIII bends down and kisses his estranged daughter, Princess Mary Tudor, on the forehead.

Her mother, Queen Catherine of Aragon, has died and Mary herself, who will grow up to become the Bloody Mary of the historical texts, has had to renounce her Catholic faith, in writing, or else face the same fate that befell Anne Boleyn. Sarah Bolger, as Princess Mary, has an almost luminous presence and the conflicting emotions that sweep across her face as Rhys Meyers' Henry VIII kisses her tell a whole story in their own right.

The third season opens slowly with Lady Jane Seymour's (Annabelle Wallis) coronation postponed, thanks to an outbreak of plague and an uprising in the Yorkshire countryside against Henry VIII's Protestant reformation.

The dialogue has a modern ring, despite its historical underpinnings, as when Lady Jane tells her lady-in-waiting, "Women are much put upon in this world. It is my desire, as much as I can, to promote their interests. I must do it quietly, but I will do it just the same." (CBC - 9 p.m.)

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