I've watched the first three episodes of the series and have come to a compromise with myself.
The truth is that I'm a person that tends to cringe when there are historical inaccuracies - especially at the level of The Tudors. The princess Mary/Margaret bit still annoys me, two years afterward. And many other things still annoy me.
But I have to say - and I know that this is a compromise... They do manage to portray Henry's personality quite accurately. Yes, the facts are amazingly wrong - and yet if you are intelligent to just read between the lines (and are willing to do so, obviously) you will see similarities with Henry VIII's behaviour.
First of all, he's managing to be a very convincing spoiled brat - we get to understand how his thinking works, and still see that he is a spoiled brat. And Henry VIII was a spoiled brat.
Then we see Anne Boleyn for what she was - cold blooded enough to seduce the king, but still human. I'm grateful they managed to resist the temptation of making her actually sleep with George, something The Other Boleyn Girl has so ickingly decided to present. That was an image I didn't need again.
Jane Seymour is sweet and yet calculated - just like I thought she was. Catherine of Aragon is pathetic in her continuous love for a man who only managed to harm her. Mary is a child torn between the love of her father and the love for her eternal soul.
If you ignore the perpetual youth of Henry VIII (which I agree is totally inaccurate - I wonder if they are going to keep him young till Catherine Howard. That would totally be unfair cause I think the way the king aged was an important aspect on how his marriage to Catherine Howard worked out), if you ignore useless fictional characters, if you ignore the fact that key people in history were simply deleted from the story (the Scotland faction, the real princess Margaret, princess Mary's descendants...) and just look at it as it is - you might get not an accurate image of the facts, but an accurate impression on characters and atmosphere at court in those days.
I am grateful that Henry VIII is not presented through the idealistic views of soooo many historians throughout time. I always thought he did more harm than good to his country - and as an avid fan of his father - I think he destroyed what his predecessors did. Just compare England when Henry VII died with England when Henry VIII died. By the way it's playing out, I have a feeling the decay will be presented accordingly. Or at least I hope it will. And hopefully, at least one in ten watchers will have the curiousity to read a history book after watching this.
