![]() The sex is strictly missionary, the blood minimal, and the battles nonexistent (at least in the first three episodes that I screened). Still, for the blood and muck we have Game of Thrones, which despite being set in a fantasy world more accurately portrays the misery of the times than the stunningly clean romance-fantasy-England (or technically Belgium where it was shot) of The White Queen. But her mother (a scene-stealing Janet McTeer) is herself a kind of Lady McBeth, playing Queenmaker for her daughter. It's no spoiler to say that a wedding soon follows, but the road is not an easy one - Elizabeth was once married to a Lancaster man who died in battled against Edward, a York. The first story is that of Elizabeth Woodville (a luminous Rebecca Ferguson), a widow (and possible witch) of moderate standing whose beauty immediately enraptures King Edward. While the series' first episode begins as a love story (and may turn more politically or war-minded viewers off), by the third episode, the machinations of the central women have lead to death, despair, and Kingmaking (sometimes literally). But while those plays focus entirely on the men of history (particularly Henry V), The White Queen follows three women who played very important roles of their own. ![]() ![]() The White Queen is actually a nice coda to the upcoming PBS broadcast of the Shakespeare historical tetraology of plays The Hollow Crown, which chronicles the kings before Edward IV's rise to power, and lays the groundwork for the Wars of the Roses. ![]()
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