| 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. |
| 88 |
USA Today Robert Bianco
The Tudors comes back enriched and improved. |
| 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. |
| 80 |
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
The sexy, sudsy historical drama returns without missing a beat. |
| 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). |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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." |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 60 |
Variety Brian Lowry
Mixing equal parts court intrigue with Calvin Klein ad, the series falls short of greatness. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
