True, but not as much as The Borgias. Alexander VI is actually a likable character there.
What post-Rome setting would be a good focus for a show like house of cards?
- Thread starter Pauh the federalist
- Start date
I for one would hope that we would get to see some of the seldom mentioned people in such a show, like Thomas Paine. Him trying to defend the king from the death penalty only to fail would have a lot of good acting
The Turkish TV show "The Magnificent Century" is probably what you're looking for. It ran from 2011 to 2014 and was a historical soap-opera based on the life of Suleyman the Magnificent. It had a huge international audience, especially in former Ottoman territories which is part of the reason it was eventually cancelled. The Turkish government really didn't like that it showed any negative aspect of Turkish history at all.
Maybe the Republic of Sale' ? Completely unknown but very interesting. 1848 Frankfurt Congress ? Maltese Knight's Malta in its final years ? Rome prequel: Sulla vs Marius ?
Emperor-of-New-Zealand
Kicked
There are political dramas all throughout history, in every nation. It's hard to choose just one. But we must remember that House of Cards is entirely fictional, both in its original British form and the American version, so to really make an apt comparison, whatever setting we choose must also easily implement something entirely fictional.
Northern Italy during the Renaissance, specifically the during the Italian Wars.
Which Borgia's show are we talking about here, I remember there being two?
That would be a great setting for a tv show actually. Lots of exotic locations, pirates, slavery, a mixed ethnicity cast would be historically accurate, civil war and political instability abound.
I would assume that @ByzantineCaesar means this one
rather than this one
which I much preferred. However it might be my age!(I also far prefer Francis Urquahart to Frank Underwood.)
rather than this one
which I much preferred. However it might be my age!(I also far prefer Francis Urquahart to Frank Underwood.)
Skallagrim
Banned
@ByzantineCaesar means this one, and @Garetor prefers this one. (ETA: and @Lindseyman meant this one, which is usually not even considered, and which I personally find lacking-- but opinions obviously vary!.)
I'm with ByzantineCaesar on this, right down to the fact that season 4 of The Borgias would have been a disaster, because it would supposedly go with the 'they have to become ever more evil and unlikable and then they turn on each other'-plot, which -- particularly in the case of Cesare and Lucrezia -- is a-historical (they were never enemies in the slightest) and wastes the whole point of the series (namely that it portrays them all as more than just villains).
I do agree that The Borgias is less historically accurate than Borgia: Faith and Fear, but what Garetor says about the series' conclusion is not really justified (there's a final scene that is.... highly a-historical, and it really irks me!) Anyway, if you want someone else's opinion, there's a comparison between the two series here. (The author reaches a different conclusion than I do personally, by the way.)
...Anyway, I was going to bring up the Borgias (inevitably, because I love them and I think they were no more corrupt than the wider society in which they existed, and Alexander VI was actually a pretty great Pope who got vilified by his enemies). So, yeah, let me just add my support for this idea. you can never have too much Borgias. But an idea for yet another series might be to just spend more time on their enemies and other contemporaries, and thus show that they were just as bad if not worse. I mean... I'd watch a series about the Sforzas any day. Or one that doesn't portray Giuliano della Rovere / Julius II as some kind of noble defender of the Church's sanctity. (The man owned seven brothels, and a fucking elephant, and in the morning he rode his elephant through Rome to collect the night's earnings while on his way to the Vatican. NOT what I'd call a very pious man!)
Is there a Patreon I can sign up for to help make this show a reality? Great idea!
I did say that it was a function of age
(I remember watching it when it was first broadcast on the Beeb.)
What about the 1688 Dutch Invasion (sorry, of course I mean The Glorious Revolution)?
How about the fourth crusade? Jude law as the patriarch of the Orthodox Church, he has been pope. Robert Duvall as innocent iii, my patron saint. Patrick Stewart as the head of the cathars.
Deleted member 92121
Speaking of a show in revolutionary France, Netflix is making one!......Based on Joseph Guillotin investigating a mysterious plague called the Blueblood virus that infects the aristocracy and makes them evil.
Yep. I'm not making this up. I don't think I could make this crap up. Just give me a historical Drama!!!
Yep. I'm not making this up. I don't think I could make this crap up. Just give me a historical Drama!!!