Reign - The CW

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Taylirious, May 16, 2013.

  1. Taylirious

    Taylirious Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    promo images; http://www.ksitetv.com/reign/cw-fall-2013-preview-reign/22546

    [yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZV7dUDpip4A[/yt]

    Preview Clip

    I am looking forward to this. :D

    ETA...

    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62zFbgY3psw[/yt]

    Promo
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2013
  2. Taylirious

    Taylirious Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  3. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Two Guys, a Girl and a Castle.
     
  4. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    I saw previews for this on M3, didn't know if it was a show or a TV movie or something.
     
  5. Taylirious

    Taylirious Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Premieres Tonight! :bolian:
     
  6. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'll check it out. It looks about as historically accurate as The Tudors, which is to say not at all. :)
     
  7. Taylirious

    Taylirious Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I had station issues but from what I caught I liked. :)
     
  8. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    That was an unholy mess, wasn't it?

    As I said above, I expected something about as historically accurate as The Tudors, which is to say "Not historically accurate at all." It was sumptuous to look at and slickly made, though it occasionally felt claustrophobic in terms of sets and cast, due no doubt to budgetary limitations. And for the twenty minutes of the episode that played like a PG-13 rated Tudors, it held my interest and I thought it generally worked and had potential.

    Those other twenty minutes? Boy-crazy handmaidens? A plucky heroine who defies the conventions of the times to assert her independence? A broody and indecisive male lead? An alt-rock soundtrack that has nothing to do with the era and everything to do with pushing emotional buttons? In no sane world do those twenty minutes belong in the same program as the machinations of Catherine de Medici.

    The tonal shifts would give an MPD sufferer whiplash. I can imagine the elevator pitch for Reign -- "A Tudors-esque historical drama for the CW audience" -- and that's certainly what the first episode delivers. The twenty minutes that had me going "Whiskey tango foxtrot?!?" hit that demographic square on the head, while the twenty minutes that I enjoyed no doubt baffled the CW demo.

    I don't even want to imagine what my old history professor at Richmond, John Rilling, would think of Reign. Probably give the poor man an aneurysm. He had a hard enough time with Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Love.

    I'll stick with it for a few episodes. I'll stick with it longer if it plays more like The Tudors and less like the standard CW series. Give me something to watch before Elementary.
     
  9. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I was curious because of Adelaide Kane, who was Tenaya-7 in Power Rangers RPM, so I checked out a few minutes during commercials on White Collar. But Kane is much more engaging as a villain than a protagonist, it seems, for she was rather dull in most of what I saw. And the Australian Kane didn't seem to handle an English accent as well as she handles an American one. Not to mention -- why were a Scottish princess and a French prince both speaking with English accents?
     
  10. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Scottish queen, you mean. Mary was Scotland's queen from six days after her birth. James V died right after she was born.

    I suspect the thinking on the part of the producers is that in costume dramas everyone speaks with an English accent. In reality, Mary had a flawless French accent; she was raised in Scotland by her French mother until she was five, and then she was raised in France after that. She would have been about fifteen, and Francis about fourteen, at the time of this episode.

    There's a lot of accent fakery going on in this beyond Adelaide Kane. Megan Follows is Canadian and best known to viewers my age as Anne of Green Gables.
     
  11. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    I missed it tonight because the power went out in my block, we just got it back 15 minutes ago. I'm taping the repeat tomorrow.
     
  12. Agent Richard07

    Agent Richard07 Admiral Admiral

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    I too decided to check this out because of Adelaide Kane. It's nice to see her career taking off. As for the show, it's lavish and doesn't look like the usual CW fare, but it lacks substance. It was also a nice surprise to see Megan Follows.
     
  13. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Out of boredom or madness, I watched the repeat of the pilot last night.

    I wasn't as annoyed by it as I was the first time around, perhaps because I knew to expect the wild tonal shifts from costume drama to teen soap.

    Depending on how closely Reign hews to history, Mary and Francis will be wed within a year, King Henry will be dead within two, and Francis will be dead within three. There you go, your season finales! :)

    It's probably too much to hope for this series that it lasts four seasons and Mary, back in Scotland, has to deal with John Knox and the Scottish Reformation. That would be wild, mainly because it would be fascinating to see how a CW series deals with the Catholic/Protestant conflict.
     
  14. Saga

    Saga Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    i too watched this last night. i think it has potential to be a fairly good series. the music and historical inaccuracies don't bother me. it just seemed to be oddly paced parts of the show were pretty slow while in others it seemed there was too much going on at once.

    in addition to Adelaide Kane i was pleased to see Anna Poppelwell. she played Susan in the recent(ish) Narnia films.
     
  15. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, I liked it.

    This is the CW, home of bubblegum. Take a chill pill. For the CW this was fantastically removed for their usual fair, and I actually liked the alt-rock music TELLING ME HOW TO FEEL.

    Who would have thought that Anne of Green Gables would grow up to such a bitch?

    There's a new Britcom called London Irish, about some Drunken Irish morons living in London.

    "Where did you go for the last 4 days when you were supposed to be getting us fish and chips?"

    "That place."

    "That place?"

    "Yeah, that place."

    "What place?"

    "That place that's almost exactly the same as Ireland except that it's entirely different and crap."

    "Oh, Scotland?"

    "Yeah, Scotland. I went to Scotland for the weekend and got married."
     
  16. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The first episode drew an audience of two million viewers, losing 800 thousand from its lead-in, The Vampire Diaries.
     
  17. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    And those numbers are still good for a tiny boutique operation like the CW?
     
  18. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I have no idea. The CW has always been off my radar.
     
  19. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    I just finished the first episode. I expected a weird "Gossip Girl" tonal clash, so I wasn't too surprised. I think I might like this.
     
  20. Taylirious

    Taylirious Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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