Loved this adaptation of the historical time of James VI of England. What I was not too sure of is was James VI a bisexual? Because he is portrayed as a cruel unfeeling husband to his wife who at first treats her merely as a breeding mare and is callous and a brute, but then is seen liking the company of young men! In one particular scene James is alone with one of the conspirators and in a deal wants him to perform a sex act on him was this a true fact? I have not read in any history books that the king of England was bisexual so was it just a sub plot? Well played by Robert Carlisle who plays him as a cruel selfish man with a bad leg that he drags around.Loved the whole thing great acting from all, Guy Fawkes played by Michael Fassbender was very good a moody fellow who would do anything for his cause.I thoroughly recommend this drama very very good love the execution scene it showed gore and fear.

One of the best historical dramatisations I've ever seen: McKidd's passion is palpable, as are the blood and gore of the Catholic purges when James I came to power, the dust and dirt on costumes, the primitivism of the lifestyles--all seem as realistic as could possibly be. Of course, we have nothing but the literature of the time to document what life was really like, but this seems to me a fine imagining of the vulgarities, barbarisms, discomforts, passions and violence of the time. I can't think of a better film to introduce young people to the history of this turbulent period--it will certainly grab their attention!

It was expected that this series would take an anti-Catholic tone, after all, it appears most of England had grown rabidly anti-Catholic (not without reason) at this time.But in scenes where the Catholic plotters were planning to blow up the Parliament, it was a bit disturbing to have the script make the characters use terms such as "martyrs to the cause" and decide that, if innocent Catholic bystanders were to be killed by their plot, that was "alright", since they would be dying for the Church or something like that.Personally, I don't think Fawkes and company thought in those lines, since they needed all the Catholics they could get, since they were in a minority in Britain. Were the producers making the Catholic plotters appear like something out of today's Al-Qaeda, to make the film more "familiar" to today's audiences? The Protestants don't appear too angelic either. The ending sequence where King James I appeared totally mad or ruthless before Parliament, talking about unspeakable punishments for the plotters who only wanted "tolerance" - well, that sort of appeared like the producers were trying to get people to equate the King's behavior to Washington's response to 9/11 and come out thinking that the USA's reaction was quite over the top too. A political statement if there was one.And where did they get it that James I may have been homosexual and had a hard time to have a "normal" relationship with his wife? The historical James I had 9 children by Queen Anne.The point is, costume dramas have all the potential to be great dramas, without having to "adapt" the script to make the historical characters act and speak in a way that would make them look contemporary.At any rate, it was interesting TV fare. *** out of *****

You'd think that combining a good director, excellent actors and fascinatinghistorical events would make for an entertaining miniseries -- but you'd bewrong. The writing stank, the history was worse than inaccurate, and I canbarely believe excellent actors such as McKidd and Carlyle were able to deliver some of their lines with a straight face. Historical inaccuracies aside, the story itself was delivered so disjointedly it was downright choppy -- almost as if an entirely different director and writer made each half. Skip this one.