The Royals is an American television drama series that premiered on E! on March 15, 2015. Created by Mark Schwahn and starring Elizabeth Hurley, it is the network’s first scripted series. The show began as a loose adaptation of the Michelle Ray novel Falling for Hamlet. E! renewed The Royals for a second season two months before its debut, and picked up a third season on January 5, 2016.
Hurley stars as Queen Helena, a fictional contemporary queen consort of England, along with William Moseley and Alexandra Park as her twin children, Prince Liam and Princess Eleanor; Jake Maskall as Helena’s brother-in-law and nemesis, the new King Cyrus; Tom Austen as Eleanor’s bodyguard and blackmailer, Jasper; and Oliver Milburn as Ted, the Royal Family’s head of security. Season 1 also starred Vincent Regan as Helena’s husband, King Simon, and Merritt Patterson as Liam’s love interest, Ophelia.
Plot summary
Helena is the matriarch of a fictional contemporary British royal family who must struggle with both common and atypical family dramas while in the public eye. Twins Prince Liam and Princess Eleanor enjoy the hedonistic pleasures available to them as royals, knowing that their older brother Robert bears the responsibility of being heir to the throne of England. But when Robert is killed, the family is thrown into disarray and a grieving King Simon fears for the future of the monarchy. Unexpectedly next in line for the throne, Liam must adjust to his new role while navigating his attraction to Ophelia, the American daughter of the royal head of security. His self-destructive sister Eleanor finds rock-bottom when her bodyguard turns out to be a conman. Trying to preserve the status quo and keep the royal family under her control, Queen Helena allies herself with Simon’s brother Cyrus to preserve their way of life at any cost.
Concept and characterization
The Royals is loosely based on the Michelle Ray novel Falling for Hamlet. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times described the show as “a tongue-in-cheek nighttime soap” and “a Dynasty about a real dynasty”. Creator Schwahn said of the series, “It’s a family drama. It’s about a family, and it just happens to be a royal family … [but] not the royal family. Hurley called The Royals “a very nice combination of what the public sees and what the public will never see. Of the concept, Schwann said:
I just thought it would be really interesting to take a look behind the curtain … Who are these people? What do they want? What will they do to get it? I thought it was really fascinating and a great idea for the foundation of a story.
Schwahn said of Hurley, “I tell her every day that this was the role that she was meant to play … she has found her lot in life” Of her character, Hurley commented “this queen is very matriarchal … she has a lot of power and I think she knows how to use it.” She noted, however, that “there’s no correlation at all between Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and my Queen Helena… If Princess Diana [sic], for example, had become queen of England, that would be a more similar age group.”Hurley later said that the character of Helena was inspired by Diana, but “some of it we picked from Cruella de Vil, the Disney character. Noting that “most of the characters on The Royals are going to be walking a fine line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, Schwahn said:
Elizabeth has been very brave in approaching the more villainous aspects of the character … I was working with Elizabeth on wardrobe and she asked, ‘Why not add in bits of fur? I think the queen should wear bits of cruelty once in a while.’
Regan said of his character, the “soft-spoken” King Simon: “He’s coping with a great deal of grief for the loss of his eldest son, Robert … He’s coping with that and trying to work out how the royal family can exist in the world they’re now in.” Moseley commented on his own storyline as playboy Prince Liam, “it’s like (if) Prince Harry was thrown into being the next King of England [sic].” “He basically is sort of a rebel … doesn’t really care what anybody thinks, does whatever he wants to do, when he wants to do it,” he later added. Park said of her wild Princess Eleanor, “she’s young and trying to find where her place is in the world. She’s a party girl.” Austen said of bodyguard Jasper, “He’s a very mysterious character … you never know what to expect from him. There’s a lot of stuff that only Mark [Schwahn] and me know about, so there’s a lot of secrets on set.” Calling the show “uncompromising”, Austen added, “It’s about the lives of these people and it doesn’t try to pretend that they would try to do anything different than the way they would. They’re all human beings with flaws, some more than others, and the show doesn’t shy away from that.
Reception
The initial reviews were largely negative. Jane Mulkerrins of The Telegraph described The Royals as “a sexy and soapy portrayal of palace life”, but noted that it “lacks the sophistication” of Gossip Girl and “the compelling melodrama” of The O.C. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times called the show “a mischievous sendup” and Hurley “amusing”, but said overall that the series “gets old, and dull, very quickly.” Nancy Dewolf Smith of The Wall Street Journal described The Royals as “a trashy soap opera that’s not bad enough to be funny and is best when it wallows in melodrama”, and David Wiegand of SFGate called the show “entertaining but disappointingly toothless”. The Sydney Morning Herald described the series as “possibly the worst show in the history of TV”, criticizing it as “a bunch of bed-hopping halfwits saddled with … very, very lousy dialogue”. The Independent agreed, calling The Royals “probably” the “worst series ever made”. Vicki Hyman of NJ.com said the show was “a royal failure,” describing it as “crass and, for long stretches, tedious.” The Hollywood Reporter described The Royals as being “like an extended MTV music video interspersed with dialogue” and called it “interminably boring”. The Los Angeles Times panned the series, declaring that “camp requires courage, and The Royals has none”, while Margaret Lyons of Vulture said the show was “flaccid, weirdly paced, and badly cast.” Variety called The Royals “bloody bad”, and the Chicago Reader advised viewers to “think of the worst hour-long prime-time soap operas to have assaulted our senses over the past 30 or so years, then go ahead and add this one to your brain’s trash heap.”
Conversely, David Hinckley of the New York Daily News wrote that The Royals “doesn’t pretend to be much more than good fun, and it delivers that.” Diane Gordon of TheWrap described the show as “addictive, naughty and just the right amount of silly … it left me wanting more”. Calling it “an escapist fantasy”, Amanda Michelle Steiner of People wrote that “The Royals is everything that’s been missing from your life since Gossip Girl and The O.C..” Ellen Gray of Philly.com also called it “silly but potentially addictive”. Kevin Fallon of The Daily Beast added that “once you commit yourself to the trashy abandon of The Royals, the one critique of the show might be that the abandon isn’t reckless or campy enough”. Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly agreed, noting that the show “actually isn’t bad … if anything, you’ll wish The Royals were trashier”.
The performances have generally received praise. Jensen called the acting “uniformly good”, and Fallon deemed Hurley “fantastic in this role”. Wiegand added, “The unquestionable highlight of the series is the mother-and-daughter reunion between Queen Helena [Hurley] and the Grand Duchess of Oxford [Joan Collins]”. Dewolf Smith singled out Park’s Eleanor as “the best and worst of what The Royals has to offer” and noted that Hatty Preston and Lydia Rose Bewley “steal their scenes in an Absolutely Fabulous sort of way”. Steiner concurred, writing “[Preston and Bewley’s] banter is possibly the best part of the premiere.”
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