This prequel series continues to be entertain and at times delight me by delivering on schemes, twists, and awful people having unexpected emotions. Doing well so far, show!

( Spoilery comments )

Since I'm currently enjoying The Serpent Queen a lot, I'm keeping my Starz/Lionsgate subscription for another month, which means I'll also be able to check this Dangerous Liaisons prequel they're advertising. On the one hand, this is one of those stories where my instinct is to say "doesn't need one" re: prequel (Merteuil's answer to Valmont's "how did you invent yourself?" in Christopher Hampton's version summarizes the relevant letter in Laclos' original novel neatly), otoh, I thought this about Saul Goodman, too, and lo, I happily ate my words. Also, there are the inevitable "but there were no black people in Paris at that time! Only a few servants!" (at the sight of young Valmont and young Merteiul talking to one each) comments at Youtube, which aside from the obvious motivation is just plain wrong. The Chevalier de Saint-Georges and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas would like a word.

But to return to my latest historical interest on tv, I wrote a contribution at the promo post, to wit:

Title: The Serpent Queen (2022)

Media: TV Series

Approx length: New series, as of today (October 3rd) four broadcast episodes

Where to find it: Starzplay (now called Lionsgate+ in some countries), one of the Amazon Prime channels

What is it, in summary?: tv series about Renaissaunce Queen Catherine de' Medici

What do you love about it?: It shapes up to be a really good ensemble series. Both Samantha Morton and Liv Hill (as teenage Catherine) in the title role are fabulous, but the show doesn't make the mistake of letting Catherine be the only interesting woman around. We get the pov of servants as well as of nobles, and said servants have their own lives and opinions. Antagonists of our (anti)heroine get fleshed out and we're given their povs as well. Lots of complex relationships between women, grudging alliances with rivals, mind games, fantastic location shooting (those Loire chateaus are swoonworthy) and great costumes. As or our main character: so far, this is the Catherine de' Medici I always hoped to see, neither over the top evil nor innocent of all wrong doings (well, other than as a child, and even then she's trying to outplan an environment eager to destroy her), but the product of her era with all its vices and virtues. And, in both her incarnations, a glare that sees entirely through you.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Characters teaming up, missing scenes, possibly crossovers.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: It's a vey new canon (see above re: the episode number broadcast).

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): To date there's been one gorey execution scene and a deeply traumatic childbirth scene. No explicit sex scenes so far. Historical sexism. There may be incest in the future, depending on the show's take on a few Valois siibling relationships, but that's not a given, as the biography it's based on doesn't interpret the relationships in question this way.

Additional: Here is the show's trailer; and this is a scene whish fleshes out Diane, Catherine's arch nemesis, who is actually helpful to her here (for her own reasons).