TV Friday: The White Queen is a rare historical romance (with video)

The 10-part historical drama The White Queen is sumptuous, glossy and as light as a feather, as historical dramas go. PBS is about to mount an ambitious, epic adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Hollow Crown series of stage plays, more or less in their entirety — but The White Queen has about as much in common with Shakespeare as The Other Boleyn Girl had with The Tudors.

And yet … from the first hour’s opening scenes of an ambush in a bright, sunlit stand of snowbound trees to its closing moments of the young Elizabeth Woodville, ably played by Rebecca Ferguson, being installed in the royal court of King Edward IV of England, The White Queen casts a hypnotic, almost addictive spell.

Rebecca Ferguson as Elizabeth Woodville

Everything about it is gorgeous, from the Downton Abbey-like music — the two share the same composer, John Lunn — to the way the camera lingers on the faces of idealistic, young lovers in a harrowing.

The White Queen, based on the first three books of The Cousins’ War series by historical romance novelist Philippa Gregory, aired this past summer in the U.K., where it garnered mixed reviews, primarily for its pacing and historical inaccuracies.

That’s the nature of historical romance novels, though, and Gregory, a bestselling author in her own right, is near the top of her craft.

Early in The White Queen, there’s a moment as implausible as it’s entertaining: Elizabeth Woodville’s mother, who dabbles in the dark arts, divines her daughter’s future by taking her to a magical lake and having her choose one of several threads leading into the water.

“We are descended from the river goddess Melusina,” she tells her daughter. “Magic is in our blood. Now choose a thread.”

Her mother then cuts the other threads, their contents sinking to the lake floor, where they will remain forever unseen.

“Things that you will never know,” her mother tells her. “Children who will not be born, chances you will not take. They are lost to you.”

It’s the women, though, who make the most indelible impression.

What remains is her future, a thread she is told she will have to reel in slowly, one foot at a time, day by day.

The casting is impeccable. Max Irons, son of Jeremy Irons, plays Edward IV as a feckless, impetuous youth forced to mature beyond his years through fame and the misfortune of an unwanted war with France. James Frain, so adept at playing the villain in The Tudors, makes an even better villain here as the scheming Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, dubbed The Kingmaker by friends and foe alike.

It’s the women, though, who make the most indelible impression. The White Queen is unlike other historical costume dramas in that it’s been written from a decidedly feminine — and feminist — point of view. The men behave like louts for the most part, and get their comeuppance, even the feckless king. Janet McTeer is sensational as Jacquetta, Lady Rivers, Elizabeth Woodville’s mother. Caroline Goodall, Faye Marsay, Eleanor Tomlinson and Juliet Aubrey round out a solid cast of ladies, duchesses, countesses and the great-great-granddaughters of claimants to the throne.

The dialogue is more Jacqueline Susann than Shakespeare, but thanks to the eye-filling visuals, that gorgeous music, the attractive young cast and its historical sweep, The White Queen is a beauty to behold.

“The tragedy of Melusina,” Gregory wrote in her original novel, “whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand.”

Academics, history buffs and contrarians will find much to dislike. If you’re in the mood for some light, gentle historical romance, though, The White Queen is as flawless as a semi-precious stone. (Super Channel, 9 ET/6 PT)

Three to See

• The Fifth Estate repeats Linden MacIntyre’s strange account of crossed signals, mixed messages and alleged skulduggery involving a Brampton, Ont., engineering consultant, Cynthia Vanier, jailed in Mexico for 18 months — and then released — for allegedly plotting to smuggle the son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi into Mexico, as Libya was collapsing. The old saying “You can’t make this stuff up” would appear true in this case. (CBC, 9 ET/PT)

• Simon Cowell joins Jay Leno for some late-night conversation on The Tonight Show, days before a new season of The X Factor and just days after Jennifer Lopez confirmed her return to American Idol. Adam Carolla is also scheduled, but if he has anything to say about X Factor or Idol, it may not be what Cowell wants to hear. (CTV Two, NBC, 11:35 ET/PT)

• Not one to be outdone, Jimmy Kimmel welcomes Celine Dion to Jimmy Kimmel Live. Chances are Kimmel won’t ask Dion about X Factor or Idol, or any TV singing competition for that matter, but it could make for good TV just the same. Dion doesn’t do many late-night talk show interviews, and Dion is not Kimmel’s usual subject. (City, midnight, ET/PT, ABC, 11:35 ET/PT)