A Fan's Guide to the Top Historical TV Shows
Period pieces, historical series, call them what you will: this sort of show is a window into another time and place, a lifestyle and mode of existence foreign to those of us who live in a modernized society.
Some of these series are madcap comedies that use the past as a way to self-reflexively examine the future (a technique Shakespeare himself used frequently in his plays). Others, are dramatic portrayals of life seen through the eyes of a tight cast of well-developed characters. Some are action epics built around wars past, tangential to the reality of the time period in question but brimming with the aesthetic of the age.
For inclusion in this particular collection, I went for sheer range; my goal is to bring you a little offering from the widest possible range of historical television fiction. Some, like Pride and Prejudice are high examples of series that tried to bring a strong sense of realism to the screen (the 1995 miniseries, unlike the atrocious 2005 film version, actually cares about accurate costumes, social conventions, and character portrayals — all of which add to the brilliance and subtlety of the humor and social maneuvering). Others, like Blackadder are ridiculous explosive comedies that have far more in common with fantasy than with historical accuracy, yet in their way reflect assumptions about history that are intriguing.
But other series I included, like I, Claudius live in a fascinating space between the worlds of fact and fiction (Claudius was a real Roman emperor, but Robert Graves’ novel was a fictionalized autobiography, and yet Graves used historical accounts to create the novel — the show brings this mixture of real history and drama together well, creating some exceedingly dark plotlines — pun intended — long before Game of Thrones appeared on the scene).
Whatever your proclivity, I think you’ll find something here that’s fun and new, and maybe when you’ve gotten hooked on one you’ll want to see what the others are like as well.