Blood, Sex & Royalty

With all the great quirky history series around at the moment - The Serpentine Queen, The Empress, and the black comedy/drama The Great. I think with this Blood, Sex and Royalty series, they wanted to make a quirky series that documented one of the most famous royals of all time - Anne Boleyn, and in doing so appeal perhaps to the ones not so much into their history.

However it just turned into a complete train wreck. As an English history buff, especially when it comes to the Monarchy, I felt quite insulted by this series.

Were they trying to make Blood, Sex and Royalty like an adult version of an episode of Horrible Histories? I'd much rather watch HH and actually learn something.

All that I can hope is that this series if it does catch the eye of English History novices, that they will continue onwards to explore more about the Tudor times and what was one of our most important times in history.

This series is like a course of "History made easy for Millennials". Rather than read and have the history portrayed in a way that reflects the era, this version turns it into a modern day Ann who uses dialog and twentieth century slang so as to endear it to the hearts and minds of the generation of communicate in this way. It just seems to cheapen the whole series when done in this way. At any moment in the series one expected that Ann would whip out her smartphone and fire off texts to Henry. Or perhaps they'd arrange a liaison in this way! Modernizing stories is fine as a novel approach, dumbing them down is another matter!

This is about Anne Boleyn. The second wife of Henry VIII of England. And how their romance became the reason why and how the Church of Ebgland was established. Though set up as a documentary with comment from history specialists and tough they have their facts right, the thing that bothers me most is the portrayal of events. Anne speaks to the vieuwer directly breaking the 4th wall, wich becomes amnoying. Furthermore the costuming is historically incorrect especially when the women aren't wearing headdresses. Anne is shown multiple times with her hair loose or simply tight back with a hairpin. She was famous for wearing the then fashionable 'French Hood'. With wich she is shown only once in this series. But also the Gable Hood was in vogue then and none of the ladies is wearing that Tudor style icon. It was regarded inappropiate for women to go in public with their hair uncovered. And Catherine of Aragon is yet again portrayed with darkbrown hair, when in reality she was a reddish blonde with blue eyes. It is something that is often done in series and films about the Tudors to emphazise that Catherine was from Spain.

Boomer here, and American. At first, the show was confusing (modern language, actions and music.) However, once I just accepted the mode of presentation, I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised with finding out new and interesting nuggets, including an expanded context for the creation of the Church of England and other historical information (like the card game!) Much of this info might be old hat to UK viewers, but I ended up enjoying the series.

Regarding the criticisms about "dumbing down" history for modern audiences: perhaps this series should be viewed as a gateway for younger audiences to relate, i.e., "approachable history" that draws them in. I grew up on the insufferably dry stuff, and find a bit of fresh air here. There is an applicable quote from one of humanity's best poets: The Times They Are a-Changin'

I personally don't find the acting as bad as some others say, the music doesn't fit the genre but for some reason I think it works. It's whole purpose is to explain the story of Anne Boleyn in a really simple way and even though I knew most of it already, it was still informative for smaller details. Literally the only issue I have with it is the fact that it only has three, 45 min long episodes so you finish it pretty quick and if you liked it, as I did, you feel like they should have tried to do an deeper dive into her younger life or even try and get another 3 episodes out with another historic king or queen and make it a 6 episode season.