From Starz you have Da Vinci’s demons. Starring Tom Riley and Lara Pulver (Irene Adler in Sherlock) it related a young Da Vimci and his relationship with the Da Vinci’s. It seems to be good.
On its heels another Starz/BBC production. the White Queen. Starring Max Irons, it is an adaption of Philippa Gregory’s work and deals with the life of Elizabeth Woodville of England and her marriage to King Edward IV. The later part of the war of the Roses, and with the recent identification of Richard III’s remains, this should be fantastic.
I think Starz is establishing itself as the premier historical mini series channel. And is it just me, but has there been an explosion of historical drama since Rome in 2005?
Big investment by current BBC Drama standards - 10 hours in this. As mentioned it’s a co-production, several Belgium sources plus some cash from Starz.
First time the newish - okay, not so new now - Head (of Drama) has come close to putting his bollocks on the chopping board, and about time.
You get the sense the BBC quite fancy this, though they did choose to show E1 of The Village at BAFTA recently. Not sure if that means much.
The one they don’t want to get wrong is Wolf Hall. That’ll be next year now, I presume.
Fwiw, if you have your internet resouces and like drama, the one to ckeck out now is Broadhurch - not BBC; a very well structured 360 min drama. Same genre as Forbrydelsen, and ambitious.
Certainly not just you. They’ve become common enough now that I often feel the need for a word for the genre of “gritty, sexualized historical (or “historicalish”, since I’d count Game of Thrones and Camelot in the same lot as their settings take a lot from specific historical time-periods, even if they’re technically fantasy) dramas”. By my count, we’ve had Rome, Deadwood, The Borgias, Tudors, The Vikings, Spartacus, Camelot, Game of Thrones and now these two new series.
A good opportunity for someone to coin a term, if there isn’t already a term for the genre.
I have read nothing about this, only seen a few commercials. So if it is grounded on something a bit more cool or fun, I would love to hear about it.
Right now it just sounds really dumb. As in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer dumb. Leonardo Da Vinci, Batman-wonderful-toy-superhero?? Oy.
I’d rather see something that is more a non-magical context like Game of Thrones and Da Vinci is the equivalent of Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion Lannister - a flawed man by the standards of the day (Leonardo was a bastard and closeted gay), trying to get by as both a “man-geisha” playing the lute and making conversation with aristocrats and also as an inventor, artist and scientist - so, smarter and more insightful than 99% of the rich folks he traveled among and trying to make his way.
See him maneuver in those corridors of power in Milan, Rome and Florence, bowing, scraping and entertaining (his lute playing was supposedly legendary) his way to getting sponsorship for his ideas and inventions - that would be cool.