The White Princess

Apart from Comer, it’s Fairley and Davis, as the royal mothers attempting to pull the strings behind the new king and queen, who lend the series a much-needed gravitas.

True to form, The White Princess frequently features an end card that admits that some of the situations and characters have been tweaked for dramatic purposes. But the actual events of this story still have enough in play to make this a riveting watch--particularly, as with the previous series, how much these three women vie for power when the majority of women at that time had little say whatsoever.

In addition to taking the chattel’s point of view in a world lopsidedly male, The White Princess is a tapestry of soap and backstage politics, with some really marvelous performances.

It has a lot of ground to cover and a lot of historical beats to hit, but it’s never stuffy or slow.

[Jodie Corner] doesn’t have quite the amount of gravitas to carry it, not to mention that she’s comprehensively overshadowed by just about everyone else around her. But The White Princess is a compellingly tangled watch, casting light on figures often blotted out by the male-dominated historical spotlight. It even manages to conjure up a little dramatic tension on what will happen next.

This all sounds more exciting than it actually turns out to be. ... The costumes and set design of [The White Princess] are an improvement over its predecessor. But the dialogue remains nearly as constrained and unexciting, even though once again an accomplished cast makes heroic efforts to breathe fire into their lines.

The sets and costumes look a tad more realistic than what Disney might whip up, but only a tad. The performances are decent, although often bordering on melodramatic excess, which is to be expected, really. Watching Davis and Fairley compete to see who can masticate more scenery makes Princess worth a look.