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Reign - The CW

Taylirious

Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Hidden between the lines of the history books is the story of Mary Stuart, the young woman the world would come to know as Mary, Queen of Scots. Queen of Scotland since she was six days old, the teenage Mary is already a headstrong monarch – beautiful, passionate, and poised at the very beginning of her tumultuous rise to power. Arriving in France with four close friends as her ladies-in-waiting, Mary has been sent to secure Scotland’s strategic alliance by formalizing her arranged engagement to the French king’s dashing son, Prince Francis. But the match isn’t signed and sealed, it depends more on politics, religion and secret agendas than affairs of the heart. Prince Francis is intrigued by the fiery Scot, but like most young men, he resists the idea of settling down into marriage, especially when he has a history with a lady of the court and his own point of view on the wisdom of an alliance with Scotland. Still, an attraction between Mary and Francis is ignited. Further complicating things is Bash, Francis’ roguish half-brother, who has a history of his own – despite his illegitimate birth, Bash is his father’s favorite. And now that Bash has caught Mary’s eye, a royal triangle may be forming. While at French Court, fierce foes and dark forces conspire to sabotage Mary’s marriage to Francis and even threaten her life, until a mysterious shrouded guide becomes her ally. With danger and sexual intrigue around every dark castle corner, Mary rallies her ladies-in-waiting and steels herself, ready to rule the new land and balance the demands of her country and her heart. The series stars Adelaide Kane (“Teen Wolf”) as Mary, Toby Regbo (“One Day”) as Prince Francis, Torrance Coombs (“The Tudors”) as Bash, Megan Follows (“Anne of Green Gables”) as Queen Catherine, Alan Van Sprang (“The Tudors”) as King Henry, Celina Sinden (newcomer) as Greer, Caitlin Stasey (newcomer) as Kenna, Anna Popplewell (“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”) as Lola, and Jenessa Grant (“Cyberbully”) as Aylee. REIGN is from CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television with executive producers Stephanie SenGupta (“Hawaii Five-0″), Laurie McCarthy (“The Ghost Whisperer”), Frank Siracusa (“Beauty And The Beast”) and Brad Silberling (“Moonlight Mile”). The pilot was directed by Brad Silberling.

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
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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?

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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."
 
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.
 
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