Sometimes you wish a show wouldn’t try so hard to be irreverent. A new Prime Video series imagines what it would have been like if Lady Jane Gray ascended the British throne and actually lived instead of being executed in a bout of political theater nine days into her reign. However, that’s not the part that tries too hard to be irreverent.
MY LADY JANE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: Over a map of 16th-century England, a narrator (Oliver Chris) talks about the succession of kings and how Lady Jane Grey ended up on the throne. He describes her as an “intellectual rebel, a bit of a nuisance and a political pawn for her ambitious noble family.” She married without her consent, ascended the throne against her will; nine days later she was executed for treason. What if she became queen and actually lived?
The essence: Lady Jane Gray (Emily Bader) has no intention of ever marrying. As she tells her maids and friends, including Susannah (Máiréad Tyers), her goal is to write a book on medicinal herbs, publish it and live independently. Her younger sisters, Katherine (Isabella Brownson) and Margaret (Robyn Betteridge), think she is stupid.
Her mother, Lady Frances Gray (Anna Chancellor), has other ideas for Jane. Since her late father had no male heir to leave his fortune to, he left it to his distant uncle, the Duke of Leicester (Jim Broadbent), a lecherous old man with a rotten toe, a disdain for women who read. books and a twinkle in his eye for Katherine. Frances feels that she needs to marry a descendant of the family of super-rich nobleman Lord Dudley (Rob Brydon) to protect the Greys’ living situation. Jane flatly refuses.
Jane is so serious that she makes a plan with Susannah to escape. But the two are caught by Frances, and to avoid being accused of theft and kidnapping, Susannah turns into a falcon and flies away. It turns out that Susannah is an Ethian, who can change between human and animal form and vice versa. They are enemies of the kingdom, and those who are caught are “dipped”—basically submerged to death.
Jane continues to fight with her mother over her impending marriage to Lord Guildford Dudley (Edward Bluemel), whom she only knows by reputation as a rake. She follows her mother to Dudley Castle and believes she has met Guildford, who appears to be a pretentious scoundrel. When she tells Lord Dudley that she does not want to marry, he replies bluntly, “Nobody cares what you want.”
Thinking her cousin, the sickly King Edward (Jordan Peters) can fix this problem, she goes to visit him. He tells her he approved of the match. If he has to be a dying king, something he never wanted, she has to marry to protect her family. His half-sisters Mary (Kate O’Flynn) and Bess (Abbie Hern) constantly kiss him, hoping to be named his successor. He says this between coughs, because he has “the affliction,” which he knows will soon take him. When he collapses after a seizure, Jane saves him with one of the herbal remedies.
After she is thrown out of the castle, she grabs a horse from the carriage and tries to hide. She goes to a pub, where she sees a handsome but rude swordsman (Edward Bluemel). As the narrator mentions, it may not have been love at first sight, but it was certainly lust at first sight.
Dudley and other lords pressure King Edward to name a successor, and Dudley manages to persuade the king to give Jane the crown when he dies. Of course, it is in his best interest to do so, since his son is supposed to marry her.
A bounty hunter enters the tavern looking for a guy named Archer (Michael Workeye). As we find out, Archer is an Ethian and can turn into a ferocious grizzly bear. In the chaos that ensues after Archer transforms, Susannah flies in and is surprised to see Jane.
Jane is caught helping Susannah escape and is about to be drowned when her mother comes looking for her. The wedding will go ahead and Jane plans to get out of it using one of Margaret’s fake blood packets. But she is shocked when she sees who Guildford Dudley really is.
What shows will it remind you of? my lady jane falls into the category of period drama that turns into a dramatic comedy due to modern dialogue, rock music, and (in this case) edgy narration. Other shows in this genre are The Great, The White Queen, The Buccaneers and Dickinson.
Our opinion: Gemma Burgess is the showrunner of my lady janewhich is based on the book by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand and Jodi Meadows. It is a program that is trying to break into the now very popular Bridgerton modernized, sexy, period comedy-drama genre. But the show has two sides, thanks to Oliver Chris’ aforementioned cheeky narration.
The narration, aided by a rock soundtrack, makes the show feel like an irreverent, curse-filled retelling of a 500-year-old story, with the mischief of Jane and Guildford’s attraction layered in to make it even more modern.
But, as we see Jane doing her thing, we see a pretty standard plot unfold. Sure, we enjoyed Emily Bader’s performance as the strong, independent Jane, but we’ve seen this plot a million times, especially lately. Women were treated as property, and in modern period dramas, women are portrayed as educated and independent, with no desire to marry some noble fop to make some political alliance or be part of some other business transaction. .
The twist, of course, is that this is a historical parallel universe, where Jane became queen and lived instead of dying after her subordinates made an example of her. It’s a narrative that should stand on its own. But the first episode continued to cram in narration, which seemed a little out of tune compared to the rest of the series. Any series that needs this much exposition to move things forward is one that has narrative problems.
Sex and skin: Some semi-nude sexual encounters, such as when Jane encounters Susannah with a man’s head between her legs (but under her skirt). When the king’s dog Petunia turns out to be an Ethian, the woman the dog turns into (Tallulah Greive) is naked, but only seen from the shoulders up.
Parting shot: Despite seeing who she is going to marry, Jane still pretends to have “the affliction”, pretending she is coughing up blood and passing out. But her boyfriend is into her game.
Sleeping Star: We are fans of Máiréad Tyers, due to her great work in Extraordinary. It’s good to see her in other roles, especially one like Susannah, who doesn’t fall for it and literally flies away when she’s in danger.
Pilot’s most typical phrase: “It’s one of those things you’re born with, like being left-handed or the color of your eyes,” the narrator says of being Ethiopian.
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. There are many moments when My Lady Jane It tries hard to be more irreverent than it actually is, but the performances of Bader, Tyers, and others keep the show from being a complete disaster, and the true story of the parallel universe is interesting to follow.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
