'My Lady Jane's First Images Will Have You Swooning

There are two kinds of period pieces that are coming out of of prestige TV currently. There's the super-committed, extremely faithful type, exemplified by shows like Wolf Hall, where even the hair feels unwashed, and the lighting feels like it's utterly naturalistic. Then there's the other kind. You know what I'm talking about, the kind that either takes liberties in the name of being more honest about how things were back then (looking at you, Mary & George orgies), or the ones that throw the entire staid idea of needing to be "faithful" out and have a whole lot of fun with history and let Catherine the Great dance to "You Shook Me All Night Long."

My Lady Jane is absolutely in the latter camp, and of the latter camp, it absolutely leans into the let's have fun with all this trope. It helps that the book the series is based on by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jody Meadows is the first in an anthology series that takes different historical Janes (and a Mary or two) from history and gives them a contemporary and not-entirely historically accurate spin. These novels are also part of an emerging genre themselves, known as "romantasy," which (as you can probably guess) is a blend of romance and fantasy, making this show a fully 21st-century concept.

Currently, the series, which cast completely unknown actor Emily Bader in the title role, is billed as a limited series, and as the other books cover other Janes (and Marys) one assumes if that changes, this will become an anthology series, in the style of The White Queen/The White Princess. But that's not such a bad idea considering we once more start off in Tudor England...