San Francisco ChronicleTim 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.

USA TodayRobert Bianco

The Tudors comes back enriched and improved.

Hollywood ReporterRay Richmond

The acting here is first-rate, the details sharp and the cinematography superb. In other words, Tudors hasn't lost a step.

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen

The sexy, sudsy historical drama returns without missing a beat.

New York MagazineJohn 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).

TV GuideMatt Roush

I find I’m even more enthralled by Showtime’s costume melodrama The Tudors than I was a year ago.

Philadelphia InquirerJonathan 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.

New York Daily NewsDavid 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."

New York PostLinda 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.

Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen 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.

VarietyBrian Lowry

Mixing equal parts court intrigue with Calvin Klein ad, the series falls short of greatness.

The New York TimesGinia 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.

TimeJames 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.

Entertainment WeeklyGillian 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.

Chicago TribuneMaureen 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.

SalonHeather 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.