In the US: Sundays, 10pm ET/PT, Showtime
In the UK: Acquired by Sky Atlantic for the Summer
First, a request: in one weekend, we’ve had two hours of Camelot, two hours of Spiral, two hours of The Killing, two hours of The Kennedys and now two hours of The Borgias – dear TV networks, please can you just show one episode at a time of your TV shows because I won’t watch them again if you don’t. I won’t have the time. Not that there’s much chance of my watching either Camelot and The Borgias again.
There, I’ve already ruined the ending of this review for you. Oops.
So, let me tell you for why I say that. Here’s something curious. HBO is upper class. It has natural breeding. Showtime is middle class. It looks up to HBO, but it looks down on Starz. And Starz is working class. Each knows their place.
Yet for some strange reason, all of a sudden, Showtime would like to be Starz and Starz would like to be Showtime. Yet there is no social mobility here. Starz cannot be Showtime; Showtime cannot be Starz. Starz may have nicked the bloke who made The Tudors to come up with their own Arthurian version, Camelot, but it’s still a tacky piece of vulgarity – much like Spartacus. But that does at least have the virtue of some cracking plotting, internecine politicking, John Hannah and Xena: Warrior Princess. Oh, and some full frontal nudity, softcore porn, language that would shock a sailor and massive bloodletting.
Starz cannot be Showtime.
Similarly, although Showtime would like to make something like Spartacus, in which there’s sex, incest, murder and swordfights, it ends up hiring Neil Jordan to make something with Jeremy Irons in it that’s largely about the 15th century Catholic church’s papal laws of ascendency. Who’d have though sex, incest, murder and swordfights could be so boring?
Showtime cannot be Starz.
Cue the trailer.
