Ok guys… this is the first premium cable series I’ve been able to watch from the beginning, with the anticipation that we would be discussing it here and I guess only a few of us are watching. It may just be an overblown soap opera, but surely, someone is watching it?
I thought tonight’s episode was ok- I would have liked to see more Anne/Henry intrigue- just a little more past Henry basically tripping over her. And they didn’t do much in explaining who the guy in the tree was? Is that the guy she’ll be blamed with commiting adultery with later? Granted, Henry had a spooky dream about Anne…but have a feeling this could drag on for years… 
I liked the scenes with Princess Mary being promised to the Holy Roman Emperor (right?) … how ridiculous it seems now but when they said the marriage would be solidified when Mary was 12 it really brought home how different things were then, and how commonplace that would have been. Mary seemed to be cool with her current husband to be of the week anyways.
On the subject of Mary, I hope they let her grow up enough to honestly hate Anne and for good reason. Although I personally favor Elizabeth in the whole big picture of things, I think Mary didn’t really have much of a chance with the changing times, her mother’s influence and the bitterness that must have been involved in her upbringing.
So Wolsley (sp?) was the one who narc’d to the French about the new treaty? Would there not be French representatives at court during that time or was that what really happened? I wasn’t sure that Henry was trying to keep it a secret from the French, but maybe his counselors were in order to give him more time to prepare for war?
Anyways… hope I’m not the only person watching :).
I’m watching it. Meyers is still disappointing as Henry, but the costumes alone make it worth the while.
The guy in the tree was the poet Thomas Wyatt, and he will be one of the people accused of being Anne’s lover later, but will survive the accusation.
I wish they were portraying Anne as a more reluctant participant. They’re omitting some of the reasons to feel sorry for her later on.
I know they’ve combined Henry’s two sisters into one, but I think I will like the Charles Brandon/Margaret subplot.
I’ve been watching the series but I think I’ll stop tuning in. There are too many annoying factors. JRM overacts and is unconvincing as Henry VIII. I could buy him as Richard III or Henry VII, but he’s too small and sneering to play Bluff Hal.
I despise the script for rolling Henry’s two sisters, Margaret and Mary, into one. Their marriages produced significant descendants: Princess Margaret was the ancestress of Mary Queen of Scots and her son James VI and, consequently, the present royal family. Princess Mary was the ancestress of Lady Jane Grey. Evidently the writer thinks that we, the audience, are too dumb to be able to tell the difference between Henry’s sister Princess Mary and his daughter of the same name.
I’m not watching it because I don’t have Showtime, but I’m one of those Tudor nerds you hear so much about and my head is about to explode with the concept of combining the sisters. As Sonia Montdore said Margaret is the one from whom all subsequent monarchs are descended, not Henry. She was James I’s great grandmother on both sides. And Mary is the grandmother of Lady Jane Grey and is the one married to Charles Brandon, but is not a direct ancestor of the current royal family. Mary was pretty, Margaret dumpy. Margaret didn’t even live at Henry’s court because she was the Queen and then dowager of Scotland. She was married three times but never once to Charles Brandon.