Swag Tuesday

Courtesy of Showtime, this week's Swag Tuesday giveaway is a special advance DVD box set of the full first season of their hit series, The Tudors, starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Henry VIII. In March, I attended a screening of the first two episodes of The Tudors and I was immediately reeled in by the lush photography and uber-hot cast. Steve Waddington? Hello, Steve. I'm Joe.

The release date for The Tudors box set has not yet been set, but Showtime would like you to also check out Meadowlands, their new 8-episode thriller series. Described by critics as a creepy mix of The Waltons and Twin Peaks, Meadowlands debuted on Sunday.

The series picks up as Danny (David Morrissey) and Evelyn Brogan (Lucy Cohu) along with their two kids, Zoe (Felicity Jones) and Mark (Harry Treadaway), enter a witness protection program and are moved to a bucolic neighborhood called Meadowlands to begin a new life. Picturesque and crime-free, Meadowlands appears to be a suburban paradise but the Rogan family quickly realizes that it's not so easy to escape the past and their safe haven becomes a world of paranoia and intrigue with surprises around every corner.

You can view the first episode of Meadowlands online now. The series continues on Showtime on Sundays at 10pm, nicely scheduled to pick up the audience for that other weird family, The Sopranos. To enter to win the advance box set of The Tudors, you need only comment on this post. Only your first comment counts and please remember to leave your email address. Publicists: if you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

The Tudors

On Tuesday, Little David accompanied me to a screening of Showtime's upcoming series, The Tudors, where we saw the first two of ten episodes. Starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII, Sam Neill as Cardinal Wolsey, and a very attractive cast, The Tudors takes a liberty here and there with the historical record, for example depicting Wolsey as a scheming behind-the-scenes manipulator plotting to be named Pope, something which I think has never been proven. (Readers?) I was also fascinated with the circuit-boyish clippered haircuts sported by most of the male cast.

But David and I both thoroughly enjoyed the non-stop alliances, betrayals, infidelities and the lots and lots of fucking. Steven Waddington as the Lord Of Buckingham will definitely please the redhead aficionados out there. I'm quite anxious to see the rest of the series, which debuts on April 1. Highly recommended.
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