Will there ever be a point where Hollywood stops milking the Tudor era for poorly-lit emotional dramas? Apparently not, if Starz's newest series Becoming Elizabeth has anything to say about it. In a world of superheroes and ace pilots, creator Anya Reiss serves to remind us of the past — specifically, a very famous past — with the new series, digging up the forbidden history of English royals in a play to be the next Other Boleyn Girl.
In what seems like a simple premise, the show follows a young Elizabeth I (Alicia von Rittberg) in the wake of her father King Henry VIII’s death, as action in the court kicks up and a number of parties are vying for power. The series is meant to serve as a look at the Virgin Queen’s early days, rather than the years of her reign that have been the subject of countless films, and as a result presents a fourteen-year-old Elizabeth to viewers, a young girl with little understanding of just how complex the life she leads really is.
If you were expecting a nuanced portrait of a young woman struggling to gain a foothold of power in an ever-changing political system… well, maybe Becoming Elizabeth isn’t the show for you. Very quickly, the new series becomes less about showing audiences the influences that shaped Elizabeth into the queen she would become, and more about taking advantage of the drama between her and the courtier who groomed her, Thomas Seymour (Tom Cullen). It’s Riverdale for Anglophiles, falling prey to the “sexy history” trope that pops up again and again on networks like Starz, where creators have fewer concerns about censors.
The series follows in the footsteps of every Tudor story that Starz and other networks have ever told, creating an oversexualized, dramatic portrait of events that belies any actual historical accuracy. And while, yes, this is fiction, and filmmakers are allowed a certain amount of artistic liberty when it comes to creating television, the troubling choice to immediately focus Elizabeth’s life around her “affair” with Seymour — which, in reality, was nothing more than power-hungry man grooming a child — doesn’t seem like it counts as fair game. Becoming Elizabeth is on the hook for almost every major faux pas in adapting history for the screen, and Alicia von Rittberg has difficulty holding her own in a story that often forgets it’s supposed to be about one of the greatest queens the world has ever known.
Starz has never been off the hook, to begin with — let’s not forget when The White Queen tried to make a rape scene look sexy — and the questionable nature of centering Thomas and Elizabeth’s relationship lacks any real substance in terms of social commentary to make it worth the effort. Ironically, Elizabeth manages to follow in her father’s footsteps, with Becoming Elizabeth mirroring the same style and themes as The Tudors, the 2000s Showtime series that followed the exploits of Henry VIII and was oft-referenced for its overt sexuality over its depiction of historical realism.
On a better note, however, Romola Garai and Bella Ramsey stand out against the maddeningly inane crowd as Mary I and Lady Jane Gray, two of the women in line for the throne vacated by Elizabeth’s (and Mary’s) father, Henry VIII. Garai is probably the best suited for period drama of this nature, having racked up acclaim in projects like Emma, Atonement, and I Capture the Castle, and she shines the most out of anyone, as a young woman grieving both the loss of her (questionably loving) father and her faith, as her younger brother Edward, now king, is manipulated into converting the entire country to Protestantism, something that would tip the real Mary I over the breaking point years later. Her pain at seeing her siblings manipulated while refusing to give up her own faith is the most forgiving portrait of Mary we’ve seen in recent years, even outdoing Saoirse Ronan’s performance in Mary Queen of Scots.
If anything, Ramsey’s portrayal of a frightened and timid Lady Jane makes us excited to see her come into her own in The Last of Us, if her ability to stand her own against her Elizabeth co-stars is any indication of her talent. Jessica Raine, a seasoned veteran of English period pieces, also stands out as Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s widow and stepmother to Elizabeth, though the series’ stark and seemingly unfounded decision to turn her into a villain halfway through the show seems like nothing more than another choice to stoke Elizabeth’s teenage angst, pitting women against women in a plot that’s been done so many times the edges have been worn smooth.
The field of stars around Elizabeth far outshines the future queen herself, and as a result, the series is bogged down in its own self-importance, following threads of lord protectors and stepmothers and God knows who else through a confusing maze of castle walls, time passing seemingly at will for characters you can’t bring yourselves to care about. A stream of faceless courtiers and lighting that barely gives you a glimpse at characters’ faces is enough to turn the series into background noise, something to flip on while you sew or eat dinner or — as I found myself doing — watching TikToks at a low volume.
It becomes easy to forget just who everyone in Elizabeth’s story is, so trope-filled and archetypal are they all. Beautiful costumes are hidden by candlelit drabness, and faces become unrecognizable as viewers strain against the emotional whiplash the series attempts to draw you in with. As a whole, the series is little more than another of the sexed-up teen dramas that have defined networks like Starz and HBO for years, providing little nutrition for anyone actually interested in the life of the Virgin Queen.
Rating: C-
Becoming Elizabeth premieres Sunday, June 12, exclusively on Starz, with episodes airing weekly every Sunday after.