Twenty shows to watch while waiting for Game of Thrones season 8

7) The Tudors (Showtime, 2007-2010)

When the Middle Ages look so pretty, you know it’s probably going to be less realistic. Based on the reign of Henry VIII in the late 1500’s, The Tudors follows the King as he works his way through marriages and national crises. Historical accuracy is not the series’ forte, but it’s gorgeous to look at, being mostly filmed in Ireland.

You want Game of Thrones actors? You got ’em. The Tudors includes performances from Natalie Dormer (Margaery), Max Von Sydow (the Three-Eyed Raven), David Bradley (Walder Frey), Ian Beattie (Meryn Trant) and Ian McElhinney (Barristan Selmy).

When The Tudors premiered on April 1st, 2007, it became Showtime’s highest-rated show in three years. Critic Anita Gates of The New York Times called it a “primitively sensual period drama … [that] critics could take or leave, but many viewers are eating up.” Natalie Dormer got some rave reviews for her smoldering performance as Anne Boleyn, but a later New York Times review by Ginia Bellafante was more negative about the show, calling it “historical hopscotch” and saying that the series “fails to live up to the great long-form dramas cable television has produced … because it radically reduces the era’s thematic conflicts to simplistic struggles over personal and erotic power.”

The Tudors is sexy, soapy and sensational, and that works for a lot of historical fiction fans. The reviewers are mixed (71%) on Rotten Tomatoes, but the audience is vastly more forgiving (85%).