The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e13 – The King Without a Face

This episode is a direct continuation of the last, but from James Maxwell’s king’s perspective. At least at the start, tragedies quickly start changing it up and Queen Norma West ends up with the most to do… then the episode brings Maxwell in and gives them a joint focus, then it shifts to Maxwell for the finish. In most ways, the episode fulfills the promises of the first couple episodes and nothing since. It doesn’t matter “In the Shadow of the Tower” turned into a phenomenal anthology series about Henry’s rule or went to crap because of the Richard Warwick episodes–The King Without a Face very ably rids the show of any residual Warwick stench. It’s a good closing episode, though problematic as far as the show’s legacy.

Anyway. The episode covers a lot of time and a lot of events and a lot of reactions to these various events, usually with West and Maxwell. The biggest supporting player here is John Bennett as the Spanish ambassador. He’s been kicking around the show for a while, at least the last few episodes, but he’s never gotten such a good part as in Face. He and Maxwell end up having this wonderful character relationship as events make Bennett the only political ally Maxwell can stomach being around. Doesn’t hurt Bennett’s a complete lush.

There’s a lot of character development for West and Maxwell (nothing about them arranging the murder of her cousin last episode but whatever, there’s still a lot of other good character reveals); the episode finally gives West a great part, something I’d been assuming the show would do since the first episode (and then didn’t). Maxwell gets an excellent arc too with some really chewy scenes.

“In the Shadow of the Tower” starts all right, ends all right, has some great episodes in the middle, and some middling and worse towards the end. It’s a mixed bag as an anthology. It’s still successful, but it’s nowhere near as good as it could have been. If only they’d cast Warwick’s part with someone who could act.

This episode makes up for a lot.

The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e12 – The Fledgling

I really had no idea how far “Shadow” could drop, did I? I mean, The Fledgling manages to be the worst episode of the series (with only one left) and with Richard Warwick in it but nowhere near the worst part. Though, to be fair, Warwick is in a much reduced role compared to the last two episodes. Instead, Christopher Neame is the lead, playing the grown-up Earl of Warwick (who was in the first couple episodes). He’s been living in the Tower of London since Henry (James Maxwell) came to power and spends his life in his rooms, rarely getting to go outside, very little contact with anyone other than his keepers. Maxwell had promised to never kill him but Neame always thinks the order is coming.

This episode is about how and why the order finally comes. See, Maxwell wants to marry off his son (Jason Kemp) to the princess of Spain and the Spanish rulers demand he kill Warwick and Neame. The throne must be secured and the Spanish see those two guys as problems. Only Maxwell doesn’t want to kill them; they didn’t do anything after all. He doesn’t seem to remember promising not to kill Neame, but then Queen Norma West also doesn’t seem to remember she didn’t want Maxwell to kill him back in the first couple episodes either.

So Maxwell and his people come up with a plan. Convince Neame there’s a plot against him to try to get him to commit treason with Warwick (the actor who’s not playing the Earl of Warwick) so Maxwell can kill them both. Neame he just has to terrorize with innuendo but Warwick they throw man-meat Hayward Morse to inspire Warwick’s lust for multiple things, including treason.

Neame’s not great, but he’s at least trying with the part; his character’s been isolated for ten years, with all sorts of psychological issues no doubt. He’s sympathetic as all hell, which just makes it worse when Maxwell’s so callous about killing him.

Making Maxwell evil, with one episode to go, is a weird flex. It’s a disappointing episode to be sure.

The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e09 – Do the Sheep Sin?

Continuing the hit streak is this episode, Do the Sheep Sin?, which has King James Maxwell dealing with a protest march. He’s been taxing the hell out of the poor, albeit somewhat unintentionally (he thought he was taxing the rich, they just put it on to the poor), and the poor decide they’re going to march on London to plead relief. “Tower”’s 1972 shows a little as the suffering peasants plead with their betters, only for their betters to give them pointless advice and the show’s middle class values are firmly with the betters telling the poor to get over it. They’re not even telling them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps—there’s no Calvinism yet—they just tell them to suffer.

Suffer so Maxwell can wage a war on the latest pretender to his throne, Richard Warwick. Warwick, playing a guy named Perkin Warbeck, is barely in the episode. And there’s a confusing bit about protest leader John Castle, who’s phenomenal, sending secret messages—unless I missed one, and I don’t think I did—there are actually two secret messages while the viewer is left thinking a single secret message was delivered. It’s a messy moment in the script, which is otherwise dead-on. Except, of course, the utterly lack of humanity when it comes to Maxwell’s take on the poor. Was medieval royalty so inhumane as history—even positive history—presents them? Bunch of pricks.

Anyway. So long as the protest doesn’t have arms, it’s not considered a revolt or whatever. So much of the episode is Maxwell sitting around, waiting for the protest, while Castle is drumming up drama. He’s got a hero of the people figure, John Woodvine, making the protest seem kosher, while Castle’s been hoarding weapons for the first chance to take things up a notch. Castle’s ambitions are rather interesting as he’s able to recognize actual injustice and exploit it to manipulate the peasants. He’s the son of a noble, natch, and noble daddy David Garth is actually the one who narcs on Castle to the king. The king investigates, the peasants take up arms, now it’s able minimizing the public image damage.

It’s good. It starts better than it finishes, but it’s good. The script, by Anthea Browne-Wilkinson and John Gould, also has a bit of a determinism problem. The only reason Maxwell is able to drum up trouble in the protest is because Castle’s corrupt. If Castle weren’t corrupt, which Maxwell has no idea about, the investigation is just information gathering, the protest wouldn’t have turned into rebellion. What was Maxwell going to do then? Browne-Wilkinson and Gould don’t even suggest Maxwell would consider that possibility, over ten thousand peasants asking for an audience with their king.

It’s a missed opportunity and a dodgy move.

But otherwise, a rather strong episode, which is good; it’s Maxwell’s biggest part in the story in quite a while.

The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e02 – Power in the Land

This episode tells a loser’s story. He played the game of thrones and he lost. The loser in question is Humphrey Stafford; real guy, wikipedia page and everything, played by Maurice Roëves. Roëves is awesome. He also gets to give more personality to Stafford than anyone else in the episode gets near. Sure, it’s not like we realize Stafford’s just a proto-rich white guy playing anarchist—like everything in Tower, the characters tell us twice in expository dialogue—but Roëves’s performance then syncs up with that revelation. And that revelation even informs some of Roëves’s performance. It’s a lot of personality for the show. But Stafford’s one of history’s losers. Again, I never did English royalty in history courses and I’ve always avoided it. So everything’s a surprise. Until the Boer War. But the show knows. And the show positions Roëves as this non-tragic loser. It’s very interestingly executed, rather well-done. Roëves makes the difference.

Then, of course, there’s the other half of the episode, which is a history lesson about how King Henry VII started breaking up the Church and the State. To get at Stafford, who was hiding in sanctuary. You couldn’t get sanctuary in a church for treason anymore. The show doesn’t do a pro and con of it, it’s just something Henry (James Maxwell) has got to do to solve this problem. He doesn’t consider the consequences. The characters are all very certain of their godawful take on reality, making Tower a lot more striking—dramatically—than Game of Thrones. Some guy even talks about the game in the episode.

One thing the show doesn’t care about? Maxwell and Norma West. She’s pregnant so she can’t hang out with him on the road and when he’s in London he’s always too busy but apparently their marriage has been going well. For the fifteenth century or whatever. But there’s no character development from anything in the previous episode. Strangely so. It’s like West, as an actor, doesn’t remember her arc from last episode. It’s a weird vibe. But fine. West and Maxwell are potentially likable together in a show where no one’s got rewarding chemistry camaraderie for the audience. You take what you can get, charm-wise.

It’s a really good hour of television; I learned things, I was entertained, I was amused. Rosemary Anne Sisson’s script was good, director Anthea Browne-Wilkinson kept it moving.

The Shadow of the Tower (1972) s01e01 – Crown in Jeopardy

In 2019, some forty-seven years since its first airing, “The Shadow of the Tower” feels like “Game of Thrones” without blood, booze, boobs, rape, battle scenes, dragons, prominent female characters, butts, zombies, and CGI. Oh, but it does have historical accuracy. There’s something really interesting seeing this “game of thrones,” specifically King Henry VII’s game for the throne, play out. Dramatized ingenuity is far more impressive than workshopped ingenuity. Even if they’re the same ingenuities. It’s kind of like Borges’s Don Quixote.

But it’s also might play more accessible these days because of “Thrones.” Amid everything else, “Game of Thrones” did teach modern audiences how to listen to plotting, something no one had been able to do since the British in the seventies with stuff like “Tower.” And they couldn’t hold that audience. At least not in America.

Anyway. This first episode introduces Henry, played by James Maxwell, who seems like he could go Bond villain at any time, making the whole thing a little disconcerting, and it introduces all the people pissed off or happy about him all of a sudden invading, killing the king, taking the throne. There are the armed insurrection guys plotting, there are the middle-of-the-road guys trying to figure out if they can work with the new king, there’s the princess—Norma West—who was promised to marry Maxwell when they were kids only she never thought it’d happen—trying to figure out her feelings on everything.

Now, “Tower” is bad at Bechdel. West’s got nothing to talk about but men and boys. Sure, it’s a patriarchy but… even with the limited expectations for a seventies dramatization of fifteenth century royal history, “Tower” doesn’t give West a lot to do except fret. West’s able to do something with it, which is impressive as hell, but it takes a while.

The episode’s got a good pace. Rosemary Anne Sisson’s teleplay is like a great lecture, the way she paces and plots the conversations and reveals. There’s no action, of course, no battles, barely any corpses, barely any crowds. It’s just about the cast providing a reasonable facsimile of their historical figures, reasonable but to the general viewer and, presumably, the informed. I didn’t do fifteenth century English history; it’s all going to be a surprise to me.

It’s very interesting.