Historically Based Television Shows

7 min readAug 23, 2023

Historically Based Television Shows

As a big fan of reading real history and biography, I am especially drawn to TV series based on history. These are not documentaries, but rather, somewhat fictionalized versions of the actual history. The characters are real historical characters and the events really did occur. But the drama and interaction are fictionalized since we can’t know every conversation which took place between these people in real life. Some TV shows were completely fictional but took place during actual historical events.

Two of the earliest TV shows I recall watching which were actually fiction taking place during real events were

“The Young Rebels” (1970–1971) [1] and “The Bastard.” (1978) [2]

The Young Rebels (1970–1971)was a fictional show set during the American revolution. It was a sort of colonial “Red Dawn” with young people serving the American revolution against England. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t that good of a show and didn’t last past two seasons. The series was playing to the patriotic fervor building as America was nearing the 1976 bicentennial.

The Bastard (1978) is a historical novel written by John Jakes and spawned a series of novels covering the expansion of America west. The TV show had many famous actors which you will immediately recognized including Olivia Hussey, most famous for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet.

Then there is the incomparable and ground breaking mini-series “Roots” (1977) by Alex Haley which needs no introduction as it was one of the most watched shows in television history.

Another fictional show based in history is “Homefront” (1991–1993) [4], a two season series which was canceled by the network. It nearly was canceled after the first season but a public campaign, much like the campaign which extended Star Trek to a third season, got the series to a second season. The show was notable for presenting some critical social issues. One family in the show was dealing with the fact their son had died overseas, but must deal with the arrival of his widow, a Jewish holocaust survivor. Another soldier becomes a union activist illustrating the conflict between management and labor of the times. A decorated black veteran comes home bringing his white French wife, illustrating the racism of the times and the issues of inter-racial marriages. The show got rid of the black veteran and his white wife fairly quickly by plot device of their characters moving to a more northern state. It was disappointing the show wasn’t continued as it confronted these serious social issues.

Then there are the Rome based TV series. First up is “I Claudius” (1976) [5], another groundbreaking series illustrating the politics and turmoil of the emperors of Rome. I remember watching it on PBS in 1976. Produced by the BBC, it has that English film style. It is an adaptation of an historical novel (which I did not know until recently) and starts with the first emperor Augustus. It portrays his wife Livia as a schemer and plotter with a negative connotation. Historians note that this negative portrayal of Livia is likely due to the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus who hated Livia. Augustus is portrayed as sort of a prudish emperor wanting to instill family values and Roman values on the empire. The scene that sticks out in my mind in this regard is when Augustus finds out how promiscuous his daughter Julia is and lines up all her sex partners to confront them. “Have you slept with my daughter?” he asks each in turn. He gets to the last man in the line and asks “Have you slept with my daughter?” “Not slept” replies the unfortunate soon to be executed man.

In 2005–2007, HBO created the TV series “Rome” [3] which only lasted two seasons covering the rise and death of Julius Caeser and the fight to control Rome ending with Octavian becoming emperor. The show was quite engrossing as it primarily followed two centurions as they navigate the tumultuous times. My favorite character was James Purefoy’s Mark Antony. But all the characters are captivating. What was most interesting was the illustration of the clans in Rome with the Julii and the Claudii most prominent. The plot centers on the conflict between these two clans. (Note: in the aftermath of the success of the faux history fantasy series Game of Thrones, which I watched avidly and read the current five novels, HBO realized that they had a similar franchise in hand with “Rome” but failed to follow through and dropped the series too soon).

Jumping ahead with the Roman theme, we have the present series “Domina” (2021-present) [6] which starts right after the Second Triumvirate of Octavian (Julius Caesar’s heir), Marc Antony, and Lepidus defeat the republicans led by Brutus. The main character is Livia, wife of Gaius (Octavian) who’s father was a republican and died fighting with the Brutus faction after the civil war following the assassination of Caesar. This version of Livia has her as a strategic political thinker, rather than the evil schemer portrayed in I-Claudius.

As a fan of Irish history who can trace my family line back five generations to Roscommon County, we have “Rebellion” [7] (2016–2019) about the Irish revolt against the English starting with the 1916 Rising. This particular series places women in the forefront of the story and indeed, historically, Irish women were very involved in the independence struggle. But in the past, they were shuttled to the back. The famous photo of Pearse surrendering after the failed 1916 Easter Rising originally showed Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell with Pearse. She often ran messages for him during the conflict. You can see her legs and boots in the original photo. Later news reports brushed her out of the photo completely. (Since Eamon DeValara ran a large media operation even while serving as President and Taoiseach [prime minister] for years, I suspect he had this done. He was a conservative Catholic who enshrined an anti-woman Constitution into place when he first got into office).

I briefly watched the Roman-era Britain series “Britannia” (2017–2021). I did not find it that good of a show. It was not engrossing and I stopped watching. But give it a try if you like.

Another show which had a huge following was “Vikings” [9] (2013–2020) a History Channel production which was headlined by the historic character Ragnar whose home village was Kattegut. Ragnar and Loki (his sailing master) figure out how to build boats which will reach England. The vikings then go there to plunder and settle. There are numerous machinations politically among the Danish clans. There is marital and social drama with Ragnar divorcing his wife Lagertha (played by the awesome Kathryn Winnick) to marry another. He has sons with both women. The show stretched on a bit after his character’s demise as one of his sons ends up in the land of the Rus, now Ukraine. There were a couple odd episodes as well. One included a Chinese woman who got Ragnar hooked on a hallucinogen. One figure, Rollo, in the series was portrayed as Ragnar’s brother and as an often jealous brother given Ragnar’s success and followers among the vikings. I don’t know that he was a brother in real history, but the real Rollo had been one of many vikings raiding northern France, even besieging and sacking Paris. The historic Rollo was offered a dukedom in the north of France around 900AD in exchange for fending off further viking raids. This area became known as Normandy and a descendent of Rollo. One-hundred-sixty-six years later his descendent, William, sailed across the English Channel to defeat the English and become king of England, aka William the Conqueror.

Which leads us to English based history TV series. The first two focus on the War of the Roses [10] in which the Lancasters and Yorks fought for control of the English throne, ultimately won by the Tudor, Henry, supported by Lancasters. He ended up marrying Elizabeth York to blend put peace between the two warring sides. The Lancasters had a red rose as a symbol and the York’s a white rose. Upon marrying Elizabeth, Henry created the Tudor Rose of red & white.

The two series do not make clear which comes first in actual history and internet reviews call the White Princess a sequel when it is actually a prequel to White Queen. White Queen came out in 2013 [12] starring Rebecca Ferguson, whom I really love as an actor. White Princess aired in 2017 [11] with the fabulous Jodi Comer.

While there are undoubtedly other series I may be forgetting that I have watched, and there certainly are thousands of historically based television series, I stop with one more.

Spanish Princess [13] aired in 2019–2020 with Charlotte Hope Catherine of Aragon sent to marry the England’s Prince of Wales and become queen eventually. Unfortunately, Arthur, the prince of Wales, dies and it is in question whether their marriage was actually consummate. Catherine insists they did not consummate so she an angle to marry the next son, Henry. Henry will famously become Henry the 8th, divorcing Catherine and having numerous other wives in short order. Bit of trivia- Charlotte Hope played Myranda, kennel master’s daughter and mistress of the torturer Ramsey Bolton in Game of Thrones.

[1]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065358/

[2]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077212/

[3]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384766/

[4]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101121/

[5]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074006/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[6]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11694186/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1