My Lady Jane (TV Program)

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    Best TV Shows of 2024

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    “English Teacher,” “My Brilliant Friend,” “Shogun,” “Babylon Berlin” and “Somebody Somewhere” were among the series that stood out in a year when television felt more mid than ever.As you browse, keep track of how many shows you’ve seen or want to see. Find and share your personalized watch list at the bottom of the page.Best Shows of 2024 | Best International | Best Shows That EndedJames PoniewozikBest Shows of 2024We live in the Age of Like. You can click stars and hearts from one end of the internet to the other to express your contentment. Like is fine. Like is good. But like isn’t the same as love. Love is more challenging. It asks more of you and it risks more. Like can’t break your heart.The good news is, there was a ton of TV to like in 2024. But it was harder this year than most to find those special, challenging, distinctive shows to l-o-v-e, which is what I think year-end lists like this are all about.All this is an outgrowth of a phenomenon I wrote about earlier this year: “Mid TV,” the burgeoning category of well-cast, professionally produced shows that look like the groundbreaking TV of the past but don’t actually break ground of their own. This TV has its place — I watch a lot of it, happily — but that place is not on this list. (The shows that did make it are arranged alphabetically.)Farewell, 2024; here’s to a more-than-mid 2025!‘English Teacher’ (FX)There’s a popular “Simpsons” meme in which the school principal, Seymour Skinner, wonders to himself, “Am I so out of touch?,” and concludes, “No, it’s the children who are wrong.” What the rookie-of-the-year sitcom “English Teacher” posits is: Maybe the children are wrong, and so are the adults, but we’re all also sort of right, and all this is part of life. Less apocalyptic than “Euphoria,” more acerbic than “Abbott Elementary,” the series surveys the post-Covid educational culture wars with more curiosity than judgment. That, it turns out, is one of the best ways to learn. (Streaming on Hulu.) More

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      ‘My Lady Jane’ Is a Sly and Sassy Historical Comedy

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      Inspired by the very (very) brief reign of Queen Jane, the Amazon series has fun rewriting Tudor history — complete with magical creatures.“My Lady Jane,” whose eight-episode first season is available now, on Amazon, seems to be in the vein of “The Great” or “Bridgerton,” irreverent historical fiction with aggressively contemporary mores and scores. But it is perhaps better understood as a fantasy comedy because not only does it break with history, it breaks with reality: It is Tudor palace intrigue with shape-shifting, a joyful and breathless more-more-more. A lot of “Jane” adheres, happily, to genre conventions, but it is done with a well-pitched playfulness. Even the stained glass in so many of the backgrounds has a funfetti color scheme.Our heroine is Lady Jane Grey (Emily Bader), a multilingual genius and healer who is at the mercy of a harsh mother (Anna Chancellor) and a cruel system. “I will do everything in my power to get out of this marriage,” she swears. “Jane, you have no power,” her mother replies. Well, we’ll see about that.Jane’s power comes from her intelligence, resolve and pluck, but some folks around her have another power: ethians, scorned and abused by conventional humans, known as verity, can turn into animals. Jane’s trusty maid (Mairead Tyers) is also a hawk, and now that you mention it, that dog hanging around does seem unusually nosy. If you’re ever confused about how it all works, frequent snarky narration fills in the blanks and adds to the show’s cheeky charm.“Jane” takes its historicity lightly and chemistry seriously. Jane is forced to marry the smug Lord Guildford Dudley (Edward Bluemel), and over the course of the season, they have a real Chuck and Blair pas de deux, an inevitable enemies-to-lovers arc made festive with seething and swordplay. Jane’s more dangerous nemesis is Mary (Kate O’Flynn), a scheming loose cannon with an always-a-bridesmaid complex, and when the two battle — sometimes physically, sometimes verbally, sometimes just with stare-downs — the whole show trembles.Early in the season, one of the more sheltered characters learns about flipping the bird and gets a huge thrill from deploying the gesture, which becomes a little running joke through the show. Is this the most mature experience a person can have? I guess not. But assessing a situation — a rude person, a flawed monarchy or even a well-worn TV subgenre — and deciding that what it truly merits is a grand one-finger salute? Ah, what a rush. More

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      ‘My Lady Jane’ Asks: ‘What if History Were Different?’

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      A fantastical series about the very short-term 16th century queen Lady Jane Grey takes historical liberties in the name of reclamation — and fun.Lady Jane Grey is generally considered a tragic heroine, the teen queen of England and Ireland for nine days in 1553 before her foes manipulated her into an early death by execution. As the cheeky narrator of the Amazon series “My Lady Jane” puts it, “History remembers her as the ultimate damsel in distress.”He then adds, using a vulgar term for “forget”: “[Expletive] that. What if history were different?”This is the animating question (and tone) of “My Lady Jane,” which premiered on Prime Video on Thursday. Playful, optimistic, a little raunchy, this take on the Jane Grey story plays like an R-rated version of “The Princess Bride,” with touches of everything from “A Knight’s Tale” to the cult Britcom favorite “Blackadder.”It is also just the latest of a handful of recent series that feature strong women attempting to wrest control of their destinies in the oppressively patriarchal societies of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, a period perched between the Middle Ages and the stirrings of modernity.These shows take liberties with history, none more so than “My Lady Jane.” Like the real historical figure, the title character, played by Emily Bader, is an educated and strong-willed young woman. Unlike the real Jane, the fantasy version is also able to outfox the political and religious forces conspiring against her, with swashbuckling flair and a self-knowing wink. There is also colorblind casting: King Edward VI (Jordan Peters) and one of his sisters, Bess (Abbie Hern), are Black, a decision made by the show’s producers in adapting the series from the novel by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand and Jodi Meadows.And oh, yes: The show has human characters who turn into horses, dogs, snakes and other animals. (Those didn’t really exist).For the showrunners, Gemma Burgess and Meredith Glynn, the series offered a chance to reclaim Jane from the cruelties of history — and have a bit of fun in the process.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More