DVD presents for grownups: Swingtown and The Tudors

If you’re looking for last minute gifts, may I suggest a DVD set of a TV show like Swingtown or The Tudors? You may be wondering why I’m recommending them both in the same post. Well, when you think of it, they’re both costume dramas, Swingtown being set in the 1970s and The Tudors during the early reign of Henry VIII. Both also involve a lot of sex, thus my title “presents for grownups” – don’t want to watch these around the kids!

Swingtown

Swingtown - The First Season follows three Chicagoland couples exploring new freedoms and seeking connections with each other through open marriages, drugs, “key parties” and swinger’s clubs in 1976. Since this is a CBS show, the sex is shown in a PG-13 sort of way – no nudity, but lots of adult situations.

The home decor, hair styles, and clothing is dead on. I was 11 in 1976 - only a couple of years younger than the kids in the show. The feel of the times rings true to me, including the freedoms kids had to wander the neighbor and ride all over town on their bikes. Parents seemed a lot less involved those days, and more preoccupied with their work and social life. Not that my parents were swingers, but I certainly remember quite a few drunk-off-their-ass neighbors at my mom’s Bicentennial party. Lots of women were making passes at other’s women’s husbands, and vice versa, too, according to my mom.

I found the show very compelling and ended up watching the whole first season in a couple of days. I loved how the couple that were the open swingers at the beginning of the show end up being the most committed to each other and their marriage. In contrast, the couples that were the most conservative were the ones having affairs and leaving the world of motherhood for careers.

I look forward to seeing a second season even though rumors abound that Swingtown won’t be renewed though CBS, which also owns Showtime, may switch it back to the cable station. If that’s the case, we’ll be seeing much more explicit sex.

The Tudors

Speaking of sex, there’s The Tudors. I blame the 1970 BBC series The Six Wives of Henry VIII for my love of historical fiction about Henry, his daughter Elizabeth, and her cousin Mary Queen of Scotts. I had heard about the Tudors, but since we don’t have Showtime, I haven’t seen the show. (And, yes the sex is explicit.)

CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment just released The Tudors - Season 2. Jonathan Rhys Meyers returns in his Golden Globe-nominated role as Henry VIII, whose promiscuous ways change the course of history as he moves to divorce Queen Katherine (Maria Doyle Kennedy) and marry Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer), prompting Pope Paul III (Peter O’Toole) to have him excommunicated.  Anne’s failure to provide Henry with a male heir sets the wheels in motion for her eventual beheading and sends the King into the arms of Jane Seymour (Anita Briem).

If you're going to give someone the second season, you might as well go all out and get The Tudors - The Complete First Season. I just finished watching it and am slowly working my way through season two. The costumes and sets are gorgeous, the acting terrific, but I have read that the history isn’t very accurate in season one but better in season two.

First of all Henry had red hair, and probably wasn’t all that skinny when he was chasing Anne Boleyn around the castle. Also, everyone is way too good looking and nice and clean on this show. (You have to remember than bathing was rare, everyone had nits, and scars from the pox and fighting were common.) Then again, I don’t mind Henry VIII looking as gorgeous as a Calvin Klein model and Anne Boleyn having couture to die for. Heck, there’s enough eye candy for both everyone and even a gay love story in the first season.

But it’s the history behind the sex that’s really interesting like Henry’s treaties with France and Spain, his break from the Catholic Church, and the lives of Sir Thomas More and Cardinal Wolsey. It’s amazing that one man’s libido changed so much history. The Tudors is drama filled, entertaining, and highly addictive. Check it out!

(Thanks to Click Communication for the review copies.)