The Borgias Premiere Review

“God will forgive us son. But I will not forgive failure from you.” -Rodrigo Borgias

At the risk of sounding sophomoric, I think I’ll rename The Borgias, “The Bore-gias” until further notice. There’s nothing too special going on in this period drama. The Borgias is the story of Rodrigo Borgias, played by Jeremy Irons, and his criminal family taking hold of the papacy. This story was apparently the inspiration for Mario Puzo when he wrote The Godfather so we all kind of know what’s happening from the beginning. Rodrigo buys the papacy and gets his position by any means necessary. This includes murder, bribery and seduction. As with any drama the most important element in storytelling is human change. I do not think we will get much change out Rodrigo. He is the constant force. This leaves our young hero Cesare. Cesare Borgia is Rodrigo’s son, played by Francois Arnaud, who has eyes to be leader of the papal army. However, Rodrigo has plans for him to join the cloth.

Cesare’s journey is what is going to carry the show. He appears to have convictions about what is happening in his life, but still chooses to honor his family. Because he is held in a higher standard by the audience his fall from grace will be more tragic. His decision whether to stay in this life of crime or leave it will provide our main source of conflict. Cesare has goals and objectives that are not completely clear to the viewer so we still have an interest in what he does.

I fear that the Rodrigo story line will grow tiresome. We get it. He’s a lecherous pope and the cardinals all want to overthrow him. What can we possibly find interesting about this? The big problem is that Rodrigo is not a sympathetic character. We aren’t rooting for him to keep the papacy because he deserves it, but instead are rooting for him to keep it so the show stays interesting. There will be a constant battle to make each attempt on his reign seem new and believable. He just seems to have such absolute power as Pope, that I’m not sure just how much I can believe he’s ever in any real danger of losing his position.

One of the main problems with the show is that the supporting characters, other than Cesare, aren’t interesting. I still have hopes for Juan Borgia, but we didn’t really get to see him do much in these first two episodes. I certainly have seen enough of Holliday Grainger and her portrayal of Lucrezia Borgia. For having as much screen time as she did, she never really gripped me. I do see that there is potential for her turn the crazy on when the incestuous relationship between her and Cesare is exposed. She’s playing very dull and dim, but maybe it’s a choice that will pay off later when she comes out of her shell. I don’t know how long he’ll be around, but I do think there is a lot of potential in the assassin, Micheletto. He is a total wild card as we’ve seen him play both sides already and we know he’s not afraid to kill. His cold delivery of the line, “I have smothered infants in their bed. But only when the parents paid me,” was pretty haunting.

As a whole, I’m not too enthused about this show. I’m not sure if it’s porn with costumes or porn for costumes. Either way, it just seems like Showtime’s attempt at the next great period drama. I think they’re really going to need to dig down and surprise us. So far we can see all the plot lines developing before they happen. We need to not be bored, and I fear that we are at this point.