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Tudors, The
Season Two
SERIES: Showtime, Sunday 9:00p (60 minutes)

Tudors, The
Critic Score
Metascore: 68 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
9.3 out of 10
based on 16 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?
based on 32 votes
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rate this tv show

Starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Natalie Dormer, Henry Cavill, Jeremy Northam, Maria Doyle Kennedy, James Frain, Nick Dunning, and Peter O’Toole

Heads will roll in the second season of The Tudors. Henry and Anne are king and queen, but this stops neither Henry's roving eye nor his suspicion of those closest to him.

GENRE(S): Drama
CREATED BY: Michael Hirst
FIRST AIR DATE: March 30, 2008

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman
Hirst, Rhys Meyers and the rest of the cast (and Bergin's costumes) make it all somehow meatier but no less entertaining in Season 2.
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88
USA Today Robert Bianco
The Tudors comes back enriched and improved.
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80
Hollywood Reporter Ray Richmond
The acting here is first-rate, the details sharp and the cinematography superb. In other words, Tudors hasn't lost a step.
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80
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
The sexy, sudsy historical drama returns without missing a beat.
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80
New York Magazine John Leonard
The Reformation is what this equally entertaining second season is about, plus ditching the brunette, Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer), in favor of the blonde, Jane Seymour (Anita Briem).
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80
TV Guide Matt Roush
I find I’m even more enthralled by Showtime’s costume melodrama The Tudors than I was a year ago.
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80
Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm
The Tudors is loads of addictive fun, filled with intrigue, the delicious papal stylings of Peter O'Toole, and that old stand-by, hot sex.
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75
New York Daily News David Hinckley
The acting, led by Rhys Meyers, is solid. The costumes and production are good and the dialogue smooth, though one wonders if clergy in the 16th century really used the word "newfangled."
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75
New York Post Linda Stasi
It's not quite as randy--it's become less of a soap and more of a historical drama. This is not to say it's not great.
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70
Philadelphia Daily News Ellen Gray
This is a season of politics and principles, of might and martyrdom. If you're here just for the sex, you're likely to be disappointed, unless the trysts of relatively minor characters interest you as much as Henry's.
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60
Variety Brian Lowry
Mixing equal parts court intrigue with Calvin Klein ad, the series falls short of greatness.
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50
The New York Times Ginia Bellafante
The paradox of The Tudors is that it takes on one of the most powerful and protested institutions in human history--the Catholic Church during the Renaissance--and provides little sense of what the English people have to gain or lose by breaking with it.
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50
Time James Poniewozik
The tumult of Henry VIII's reign, especially the schism between him and the Catholic Church, is rich material, and the soap opera of his multiple wives is naturally absorbing: it's just a crime that Showtime couldn't do better with the material than the thinly written eye candy it came up with.
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42
Entertainment Weekly Gillian Flynn
Henry and Anne nag and harp and tongue each other. It's like asking us to root for a particularly vapid reality TV couple.
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40
Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan
This is one historical drama that takes itself far more seriously than it deserves to, given the quality of the writing and the flatness of many performances.
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40
Salon Heather Havrilesky
While the show's portrayals of King Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey and Lady Anne Boleyn feel reasonably vivid, there's a flatness to them, as if it's enough to merely tell the story convincingly and make everyone look damn good in corsets and puffy sleeves along the way.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this tv show is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 32 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Norma gave it a10:
Can't wait for each new episode. The best series on television!

Pat P. gave it a10:
Great way to get all that history I hated in school laced with sex.

Janet S. gave it a10:
This is a very amazing show, how they put History of the Tudors in 1 hour is amazing, it is also very exciting to watch.

A S gave it an8:
I love this show. It is interesting to see the Tudors in a soap opera like setting. I would only like to see more historical accuracy.

Carletta E. gave it a10:
the show is breathtaking and the actors keep you on the edge of your seat in anticipation. Bravo Tudors.

Wendy F. gave it a7:
JRM is just not believable in the role of Henry - too short and too whiney.

Stephen R. gave it a10:
Fantastic show, maybe not all that historically accurate, but Fantastic nonetheless!!

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