- E!
- Elizabeth Hurley (center) is the queen of being not nice.
For longer than any of us would prefer to remember, E! (the network that shouts entertainment at you) has been bringing into our living rooms the “true” stories of real-life “famous” people, some horrible, others tragic (RIP, Anna Nicole), and plenty more of them a little bit of both. How many shows have the Kardashians been given at this point? Kris Jenner slides into the room in stocking feet like Tom Cruise in Risky Business and screams NOT ENOUGH.
Think of the worst hour-long prime-time soap operas to have assaulted our senses over the past 30 or so years, then go ahead and add this one to your brain’s trash heap. The dialogue is dull in its desperation to be shocking, the narrative is kind of boring, and the production values remind me of 1990s episodes of Beverly Hills 90210—which was a great show, by the way. But The Royals isn’t even bad good. I like camp as much as the next gal, but it takes a degree of self-awareness, and this show’s only goes so far. Yes, the makers know it’s ridiculous for Prince Liam to act out by crowd surfing at a garden party honoring military veterans, but I’m not sure they realize the several-second freeze of him being filmed from above was a thousand times more ridiculous.
