The Serpent Queen

Considered an immigrant, common and plain, Catherine de Medici is married into the 16th century French court as an orphaned teenager expected to bring a fortune in dowry and produce many heirs, only to discover that her husband is in love with an older woman, her dowry is unpaid and she’s unable to concieve. Yet, only with her intelligence and determination, she manages to keep her marriage alive and masters the bloodsport that is the monarchy better than anyone else, ruling France for 50 years.

In spite of superficially, being a tale about 16th century Italian noblewoman Catherine de' Medici, who eventually became a French Queen, looking at this production you might be forgiven for thinking you were at watching a polished historical larper's party, in 21st century woke England. There's nothing terribly Italian about this series. Its vibe is very Brit down to its boots and sadly, this tends to undermine the presentation of what is supposed to be an Italian historical drama. Its cause is further weakened by the predictable and tiresome revisionist perspective, it adopts, laden down with historically inaccurate woke twaddle. Making Catherine out to be an "empowered woman" in the modern feminist idiom, facing down the patriarchy, fails to acknowledge who she was and that, essentially, was a ruthless noblewoman and ruler. Anyone wanting to shed woke crocodile tears for poor oppressed Catherine, need only read some of her rather terrifying and chilling letters. All of this is a shame and rather wasteful, in my view, given the quality casting and high production values. In summary, blindly revisionist nonsense, any half decent historian would write off for the historical fiction, it truly represents.