Monday, March 28, 2011

And They Say That TV Rots Your Brain...

As loyal readers might remember, I really like historical TV shows. My adoration of HBO's The Tudors can be read here. Luckily, The Tudors was so successful that it now has other channels scrambling to do something like it (yay!). I am super excited to see Showtime's The Borgias (creative titling, guys). This show premieres Sunday, April 3rd at 9pm and looks seriously good. The show will focus on the Borgia family (who could have guessed?), who are some pretty nasty characters from the 15th century (ooooh man, the 15th century. I can't wait until TV channels take it even farther back in time. (Charlemagne, people! The Crusades! Eleanor of Aquitaine! This is good stuff, get on it!)

In case you don't know, the Borgias are an interesting bunch. Papa Borgia  is played on the show by Jeremy Irons, who among other things, voiced Scar in the Lion King- and played Severus Snape in the parody film Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan. I haven't seen that particular classic, so I can't judge it though. Anyways, Showtime is billing The Borgias as "the first crime family", which is sort of silly (I mean, seriously, the Romans had it on these guys centuries/millenia ago). Anyways, to sum things up, Papa Borgia made himself Pope through a bunch of nasty political maneuvering and a variety of less-than-moral actions (like bribery, assassination, etc). He has five kids (which is a bit of a problem in itself for a pope, isn't it?) and uses them all mercilessly. He fully intends to make his family into a papal dynasty (so wrong).

Here is the link for the Showtime website, with all sort of details and character bios and such:
http://www.sho.com/site/borgias/home.sho

I really hope that this show ends up being as good as The Tudors. (I also hope it lasts more seasons!) Don't disappoint me Showtime. Don't disappoint me Jeremy Irons (seriously, I respect you for playing Scar, don't do me wrong).

No comments:

Post a Comment