Final season set for 'The Tudors'


Showtime picks up fourth installment of historical drama

By James Hibberd


Next year, Showtime's "The Tudors" will run out of wives.

The network has renewed the historical melodrama for a fourth and final season. The pickup consists of 10 episodes that Showtime says will dramatize King Henry VIII's last two tumultuous marriages, to Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.

The new episodes will continue the show's current quickened matrimonial pace of going through two wives per season, a narrative strategy that was planned from the show's outset given that Henry's first two wives (Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn) were the best known and most influential.

The final season will air next spring and be written by series creator Michael Hirst, who in a display of prolific energy is single-handedly writing all 38 episodes of the saga. Ending "Tudors" also frees him up to work on a Camelot project he's developing for the network.

With Showtime recently rejecting several other projects, including an "L-Word" spinoff, there's likely to be a slot or two available (and if Camelot follows the "Tudors" model, the project would be picked up straight to series).

The third season of "Tudors" recently debuted to steady, strong ratings. Given the show's historical nature, the series was never seen as a program that could run indefinitely. The question was only whether "Tudors" would receive healthy enough numbers to finish at its own pace.

"I'm thrilled to complete the saga of Henry VIII as reconceived by Michael Hirst," Showtime president Robert Greenblatt said. "He and (star) Jonathan Rhys Meyers have breathed new life into the costume drama by making it both modern in sensibility but also faithful to history. I think we proved that even after 500 years, this is a great story."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i89d7632ddc985bd14dce8066907229ea

It's a shame to see it go so soon, but they have handled it well, and I'm glad they're not going to stretch it out. Four seasons is a healthy run, considering the material they had to work with.