The White Queen

The creative team behind popular period dramas The White Queen and its sequel series The White Princess are joining forces again to tell another Tudor-family story.

Premium cable Starz announced its new limited series The Spanish Princess, based on two more of best-selling author Philippa Gregory’s historical fiction novels. The series will adapt Gregory’s The Constant Princess and The King’s Curse to tell the story of King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Much of her life will probably be familiar to viewers, as she was the woman thrown over and then divorced in favor of the infamous Anne Boleyn. But Catherine’s life story contains a great deal more drama than that.

After what feels an amount of time possible equal to the length of the actual Wars of the Roses, the highly anticipated sequel to popular period drama The White Queen is finally about to hit our televisions. The White Princess’ reign will officially begin on cable network Starz on Sunday, April 16.

The series will continue the story of author Philippa Gregory’s Cousins War series of novels, which depicts England’s Wars of the Roses from the perspective of the women involved.

Finally! After nearly three years of rumors, waffling and vague executive statements at press and promotional events, the sequel to The White Queen is actually happening!

Premium cable network Starz has officially commissioned The White Princess, based on best-selling author Philippa Gregory’s novel of the same name. The novel follows the story of Princess Elizabeth of York, daughter of White Queen Elizabeth Woodville, and focuses on her marriage to Henry Tudor (King Henry VII), which included the birth of multiple children, several rebellions and various other dramatic incidents.

You guys remember The White Queen, right? It was this BBC miniseries that adapted several of Philippa Gregory’s popular historical novels about the Wars of the Roses. It aired here in the States on the premium cable network Starz and a lot of people liked it and were pretty sad to learn that it was a one-and-done sort of series, particularly when there’s so much story leftover after King Henry VII is crowned.

Anyway, despite the fact that the BBC announced that they were finished with the property, back in 2013 Starz seemed really into the prospect of doing some sort of sequel, most likely based on Gregory’s novel The White Princess. The novel follows the story of Elizabeth of York, daughter of White Queen Elizabeth Woodville, focusing on her marriage to Henry Tudor and their life together, which included the birth of multiple children, several rebellions and various other dramatic incidents.

That post has remained pretty popular on this site for the past year and a half, so it would seem the interest in this property is still there, despite the fact that no more news – or even confirmation that the project was in the works – seemed forthcoming. Many fans (probably) had given up on ever hearing anything else about The White Princess. (I may have been one of those people.)

Well, get ready, people, because it looks like The White Princess might just be happening after all.

Happy Thanksgiving, Telly Visions readers! Thanksgiving is one of the few quintessentially American things we acknowledge here around the blog, but it seems important to take the opportunity to say THANK YOU as loudly and as often as possible, so here we are. We like to do this every year, because, well. Sometimes it needs saying.

Thank you for reading and commenting and liking and tweeting and basically being willing to enable my otherwise embarrassing obsessions with British television generally and Benedict Cumberbatch specifically.

Thank you for watching some really great programming with us and for being so smart and thoughtful in your discussion of it. Thank you for loving so much of the same stuff that those of us around here do – isn’t it nice to feel part of a group?

Mostly, thank you for being here and just for being generally awesome people. We’ve got big plans for 2014, so stick around.

As is now a Telly Visions tradition, here is what I’m thankful for this year, in list form.

Some serious good news has arrived for those that enjoyed lavish period drama The White Queen on Starz. Even though the Wars of the Roses are over, the series itself might not be. Sort of. Maybe. Cross your fingers.

The Telegraph is reporting that Starz, the US premium cable network which has been airing the Wars of the Roses drama this summer, is hoping to commission a sequel series, based on author Philippa Gregory’s The White Princess. Princess is also part of Gregory’s “Cousin’s War” series of novels, and follows the events depicted in The White Queen, The Red Queen and The Kingmaker’s Daughter, the trio of stories which formed the basis for the original series. The White Princess tells the story of Elizabeth of York, daughter of the titular White Queen Elizabeth Woodville, through her marriage to Henry Tudor and their reign together, which included the birth of multiple children, several rebellions and other various dramas.

The White Queen has received mixed reviews in the States, but seems largely popular among fans. It’s also done quite well in the ratings in America, averaging over 2.5 million viewers per episode, so it’s not a surprise that Starz is considering its options about whether or how to continue the franchise.

Feeling an itch for some medieval-style political intrigue, awesome ladies, epic battles and great costumes? Then upcoming costume drama The White Queen is probably for you.

Based on a series of novels by Philippa Gregory, the ambitious ten-part drama attempts to tell the story of the Wars of the Roses through the eyes of three very different women, who were all intimately involved in the battle for the English crown. Elizabeth Woodville, the titutlar White Queen and wife of King Edward IV, Margaret Beaufort, mother of the man who would become King Henry VII, and Ann Neville, daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker and eventual wife of King Richard III. (In other fun facts, Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort are the grandmothers of King Henry VIII.)

The Starz website describes the show as “a riveting portrayal of one of the most dramatic and turbulent times in English history. A story of love and lust, seduction and deception, betrayal and murder, it is uniquely told through the perspective of three different, yet equally relentless women. In their quest for power, they will scheme, manipulate and seduce their way onto the English throne.”

This extended official trailer from Starz is much, much better than the teaser trailer offered last month, which seemed to focus primarily on the fact that everyone in the cast was attractive. This clip not only shows almost every major character, it gives you a pretty good idea of the basics of the series’ plot – or, at least before everything gets really messy later on.

A new trailer has been released for upcoming ten-part series The White Queen and if this sort of drama is in any way your thing, it’s going to get you pretty excited for its debut. Based on Philippa Gregory’s bestselling Cousins War series of historical novels, the series will tell the story of the Wars of the Roses from the perspective of the women involved, primarily Elizabeth Woodville, the titular White Queen and wife of King Edward IV, Margaret Beaufort, mother of the man who would become King Henry VII, and Ann Neville, the daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker and eventual wife of King Richard III.

Even though this trailer shows us zero actual footage from the series itself, it’ll probably leave you feeling way more excited to see it than the Starz promo that seemed to focus almost exclusively on the fact that King Edward IV was a womanizer, rather than the actual feud between the Lancasters and the Plantagenets. And also, really, the series is called The White Queen – and ostensibly about the ladies of the Wars of the Roses – and you make the teaser trailer all about King Edward. Feeling a bit judge-y about that still, even if it was enjoyable to watch.

Seriously, this one is so much better, even though all it shows us is ladies in armor. Go watch. The best thing this clip does is highlight that while this mini-series is arguably about a (series of) war(s), much of the conflict didn’t actually take place on a battlefield and that these particular politically savvy women were just as influential as their male counterparts in determining the outcome of events. Take that, King Edward.