Oh, Christ - "The Tudors"

We were deep in a non-stop run of viewing many streaming episodes of The Hills on Netflix. The exquisite self-induced suffering imposed was like none other! Since every blog out there spends at least half its space discussing this withering phenom, I will refrain, except to say that I am making shirts that say TEAM JUSTIN BOBBY.

We get to the end of Season 3, get all psyched to plunge into the silicon-injected shitstorm that must be Season 4, but no! Netflix only had the first three seasons streaming! DAMMIT!

So we have trudged listlessly through the last week, trying to decide what series to plunge into (and we do have Mad Men Season 3 burnt to disc, and all of True Blood, neither of which we have seen; but it's summer and it's hot so we need trash to go with our DLM deli junk at dinner, not quality!).

Many friends (well, two) had talked up The Tudors over the ages. Was it time?

Why, yes.

And what a profound sense of unease the first two episodes caused. J.R. Myers (when I imagine myself doing things, I look like him in the imagining*; will probably end up his sponsor!) as King Henry the 30th or what have you bangs two lovelies in the first thirteen minutes; some big red-haired dork plots against the king, all the while having little tiny eyes like the slow-brained half of Master Blaster with the helmet knocked off; Sam O'Neill tilts his head and looks wry. SO much shitness! I kept waiting for Rachel Ward to roll in!

Oh! And lots of shots of velvet-clad servants honking their heralding horns [alliteration! V. classy, like this show!]! To prove it's England! You know?

We're only two episodes in, but it's love! Not sure of who all the characters are supposed to represent from actual history (the Bride was so annoyed with it [in a good way] that she started mopping the wood floor, leaving me to watch the horror unfold alone, but causing just enough clanking-mop noise to be distracting), but my fave scene was the King and his sort of spiritual adviser (oh, he's supposed to be Thomas More! Ha!) are being ferried along in a boat and old Henry says:

"I read that book you sent me...the one by Machiavelli..."

At this point, the Bride was banging her head against her drawn-up knees, hoping, praying it would stop.

And to think: we have 34 EPISODES TO GO!

* I don't, really.