I can't be the only person who watched this, last week and this, on channel 4, can I?
Personally, I thought it was brilliant, and on channel 4 as well, who knew they had it in them to stage a full period drama and pull it off perfectly and with oodles of class? I thought their limit was showing something with the words 'Hilarious' and 'Out-takes' in the title, at 3am, when you only turn it on to see if theres any chance of a bit of ladies rude bits when you can't sleep - or at least it was until Babe Cast came on Sky Channel 461... erm anyway...
Hats off the Channel 4; I'm probably a bit biased, as I've read and studied the Tudor period, but it was fantastically well done. Was great to get a window in to that world, and it was one of those programmes where you forget you are watching a film about 10 seconds in, suspension of disbelief, right from the word go, which for a factual period drama, is what you need above all else.
Helen Mirren played Elizabeth perfectly, although for such an icon, who we only know through paintings and descriptions from the 1500 and 1600's, you only have to get the perceived image right, and everything comes from there, like how everyone will immediately, if you mention Henry VIII, think of a big fat bloke, with a beard, even though when he came to the throne he was athletic, thin and only 17 years old.
So, stern faced woman with a white face and red hair - Elizabeth I. Everything was so well done though; the scene where Lopez was hung, drawn and quartered (well, just hung on screen) and the beheadings where done perfectly, and genuinely disturbing.
Overall, I thought it was the best bit of casting, acting and writing I've seen for a very long time. Ok, so they buffed up the Earl of Essex romance bit, to make it a bit more palatable for the sort of people who think Dirty Dancing is a good film, but you have to have a bit of artistic licence for this sort of thing.
The BBC have something very similar in the pipeline, and amazingly, unless they have pulled off something spectacular, it seems Channel 4 might have beaten the BBC at their own game, with a big, showpiece drama done perfectly.
The Beeb normally get these things right, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.
I hope I can assume that as this is HEXUS and not a Yahoo Chat Room, some of us were watching this and not Ant and Decs Light Entertainment Unfunny Time Wasting on ITV.
So, on that note; anyone else see it? Opinions?


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), in fact, I think it's rather concerning that we are paying a licence fee, ostensibly for a broadcaster to provide quality programming such as this, yet most of it is no longer coming from the BBC. Also, as I don't yet have freeview/sky, I don't get to see the other 'free' BBC channels, yet I still have to pay the full licence. I wonder really how much longer the BBC can continue to justify the licence fee, I barely watch the BBC now, even with only the terrestrial non-freeview channels to watch.
