# The Borgias



## Brian G Turner (Jan 20, 2014)

Decided to add this to my "to watch" list, and saw the first episode last night.

What an amazing setting! Truly, I cannot remember the last time I saw such lavish sets and costumes - absolutely wonderful!

The story was pretty decent with a lot of conflict provided - within the Borgias family, and against it. 

This looks like a production that has had a lot of time, effort, and love lavished on it. And with the first episode being - as much as anything - a face-off between Jeremy Irons and Derek Jacobi, it was hard to go wrong.

Will be interesting to see how this series develops.


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## The Judge (Jan 20, 2014)

I got the DVD some while back, as this is more or less the time and general location in which I've set my fantasy, so I was interested in all the clothing etc.  It reminded me rather of The Tudors, though -- no expense spared on incidentals to achieve a sumptuous look, and no money spent on the script.  As for historical verisimilitude...

I gave up after two episodes so I don't know how it progressed.  Mind, part of giving up was because I was cringing at Jeremy Irons' love-making with a woman about forty years younger than he was. *skin crawl*


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## paranoid marvin (Jan 20, 2014)

Very similar in style (and substance) to The Tudors, and plays just as fast and loose with historical fact. It has it's good and bad moments, but overall well worth watching.


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## Glisterspeck (Jan 20, 2014)

Hm. This is the Showtime one, right? I want to see that but haven't seen that come across any of my go to consumption channels, but I will say the French production (in English for some reason) on Netflix is pretty solid. Only two seasons though.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 21, 2014)

The first 3 seasons of The Borgias is currently available to stream online via Lovefilm.


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## svalbard (Jan 24, 2014)

If you do not mind how loose they played with the history, this was not a bad show. It was lavishly shot, the acting was over the top (Irons is brilliant), and if it introduces people to Renaisance history then the series was worth every penny. I recently listened to a professor from Trinity College Dublin express this opinion about the movie Braveheart and how it led to increased interest in the history of Scotland.

It is a pity that the Borgias was cancelled.


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## Glisterspeck (Jan 24, 2014)

I said:


> The first 3 seasons of The Borgias is currently available to stream online via Lovefilm.



Wow. Never even heard of it. Will check it out.


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## SevenStars (Jan 26, 2014)

svalbard said:


> If you do not mind how loose they played with the history, this was not a bad show. It was lavishly shot, the acting was over the top (Irons is brilliant), and if it introduces people to Renaisance history then the series was worth every penny. I recently listened to a professor from Trinity College Dublin express this opinion about the movie Braveheart and how it led to increased interest in the history of Scotland.
> 
> It is a pity that the Borgias was cancelled.



I quite agree.
This was, excluding historical accuracy, a brilliant show that deserved another series.

I have just finished reading The Borgias by Christopher Hibbert - not a bad read at all for those interested in the family and the Renaissance.


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## The Judge (Jan 26, 2014)

SevenStars said:


> I have just finished reading The Borgias by Christopher Hibbert - not a bad read at all for those interested in the family and the Renaissance.


By coincidence, I picked this up just yesterday -- my first thought on looking at it was that it had been put in the history section by mistake, as everything about the cover yells racy historical fiction!


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## SevenStars (Jan 26, 2014)

Yep, I think they went a little over the top with the marketing ploy there!

It does have a few moments here and there that might have been handled a little better, but overall it's not bad.  The front cover picture definitely lends an air of racy fiction.  


Sarah Bradford's Lucrezia Borgia: Life, love and death in Renaissance Italy is a very good read.


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 10, 2014)

Only a couple of episodes from the end of Season 1 of the Borgias, and am finding it a bit slow.

The production values are amazing - but none of the characters are sympathetic. The story also seems to be dragging:

Spoilers!



Spoiler



1. The elder son love interest story line feels like filler at the moment. He falls madly in love with a woman he's barely spoken to - she falls madly in love with him, even though she doesn't even know his name! Then leaves him to become a nun when she finds out her abusive husband has been murdered? This all feels very irrelevant at the moment.

2. Rodrigo Borgias will marry all his beloved children for political purposes, no matter how painful it feels. Except the middle son, who for some reason is allowed to do whatever he likes. For someone who is claimed to have spent his whole life "training to lead" he appears incapable of understanding simple concepts, such as discipline, and Rodrigo appears to have no wish to see the issue put on him. Feels very inconsistent.

And his constant sexploits with his youngest brother's wife - all seems gratuitous and pointless. All it says about the character is that he's undisciplined and reckless - but we already knew that. This does nothing to develop anything other than irrelevant titillation.

3. Lucretzia - falls in love with a Moor. Then after he's murdered, she'd raped by her husband. No problem - naturally, this is the moment for her to love with a stable boy. Is there any consistency here?? Takes an awful long time for anyone to recognise she has Morning Sickness, as well.



All in all, wonderful production values - the shot of the French army at Lucca was amazing. But the story itself in Season 1 feels piecemeal, plodding, and unfocused to me so far.


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## thaddeus6th (Apr 11, 2014)

I don't want to be beaten with big pointy sticks, but I couldn't get into this, which surprised me rather a lot.

It was/is shown at 10pm on Pick (channel 11 on Freeview) so I thought I'd give it a crack but... the characters didn't grab me. I just wasn't interested in what happened next. I was considering giving it some more time, but Top Gear/The Musketeers were on beforehand and I'm not such a telly addict I relish three hours on a Sunday evening, so I stopped after two episodes.


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 12, 2014)

I enjoyed the last couple of episodes, but felt the show took too long to get there - too much gratuitous sex slowing down the story for at least a couple of episodes.

Overall, certainly an admirable attempt to make history interesting, and the production values are unbeatable - but dragged out too slowly, and while I can appreciate the film makers may want us to think the people of this period were decadent, the sex just made it look like a weak attempt at lowest common denominator audience ratings.

Not decided on watching the second season, but don't feel compelled at the moment.


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