“My Lady Jane” Is The Best Show of the Summer
The period romance/ fantasy adaptation was a critically acclaimed delight with a growing fan base. So why was it canceled?
I wasn’t expecting that much when I first turned on “My Lady Jane” on Amazon Prime Video. I’d heard good things about the show from some TikTok users, but was dutifully saving it for when my partner got back from out of town because he loves a good period piece. Adapted from a book series of the same title, this portrait of Edwardian England centers around Jane Grey, a noblewoman who was placed on the throne after the death of Henry VIII’s only son, the sickly Edward, lasting less than a fortnight before being beheaded.
Within a few moments, it was clear that “My Lady Jane” fits into the trend of recent historical series that are purposefully anachronistic, such as “Bridgerton,” “The Great,” and the underrated “Dickinson.” It also follows along with the pattern of casting diverse actors in period pieces, a trend popularized almost a decade ago now in “Hamilton.” As I’ve written before, while conservatives and many boomers get their panties in a twist about this kind of historical inaccuracy, introducing diversity into otherwise all-white retellings of these stories is “undoubtedly a Good Thing.” But without further analysis, such portrayals can fall prey to colorblindness. In “My Lady Jane,” Prince Edward and Princess Elizabeth are both Black, but there isn’t any analysis of the role this might play in their society. (Maybe there would’ve been, in further seasons.)
But I’ll give it a pass as this show, unlike peers in the genre, has another element: fantasy. Not only does the show change the story of Jane Grey, it also adds transfiguration into the mix: some people, called Ethians, can willfully change from humans into animals and back into humans again. Royal policy stigmatizes Ethians as “beasts” who are targeted and murdered by bloodthirsty guardsmen. So yes, to watch this show you’re going to have to suspend disbelief.
The zany setup and fast-moving plot keeps you guessing throughout the show’s eight-episode run, shepherded along by a witty narrator and Blondie songs. When we first meet, Jane, played by excellent newcomer Emily Bader, is a headstrong feminist uninterested in marriage, known for her homemade healing remedies. But it’s not long before her mother forces her to marry Guildford Dudley, ostensibly because her family needs money. The twists begin there and continue throughout the show, making it hard to turn off.
Speaking of turn offs and turn ons, a huge draw of the show is the central couple, Jane and Guildford, played by Edward Bluemel of “Sex Education,” whose wide-eyed smirk is peak rat boy summer. The winning formula of enemies-to-lovers guides their barbed flirtations in the first few episodes, and it’s pretty enthralling. The actors have chemistry so bonkers that I was compelled to research whether they were dating in real life. (In a stunning loss for parasocial relationships everywhere, I am sad to report that they are not.) It’s clear that the show took a page from the steaminess of “Bridgerton,” perhaps in a bid to repeat its success– though I’d argue this is the superior show. Twitter would agree: As one user wrote, “u guys kinda have to tune into my lady jane…..its like if they wrote bridgerton while on ketamine and i mean that in a good way.”
Like “Bridgerton,” “My Lady Jane,” written by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows, is also an adaptation of a book series. But unlike “Bridgerton,” it is far from an adult romance novel chock-full of ridiculous dirty phrases like “to the hilt.” No, while the show has quite a few steamy scenes between its protagonists and other characters, the book is literally about 16-year-olds. Reading the book after watching the series made me feel kinda icky! It was also among the first times I’ve felt an onscreen adaptation notably improved upon its source material, when usually it is the other way around.
The differences are pretty major: in the show, Jane has a best friend who is an Ethian– and I was so excited to see her played by Máiréad Tyers from “Extraordinary.” In the show, Jane also has two sisters who are missing from the book, major characters that added a lot of depth and fun to the series. The series creates an entirely new character in the devious Seymour, played by Dominic West, a court advisor with a sadomasochistic relationship to Princess Mary, who is practically foaming at the mouth in a furious bid to become Queen. The other court advisor is Guildford’s father, and the Seymour character adds a layer of complexity to the plot and several layers of entertainment value. The plot twists that excite in the show drag on in the book. And the queer elements of the show are nowhere to be found in the source material. Reading the book left me even more impressed with the show’s writing than I’d been before – most episodes were penned by show creator Gemma Burgess, along with Alyssa Lerner, Meredith Glynn, Shepard Boucher, Cathy Lew, and Bisanne Masoud.
This unique, irreverent show is one of the most entertaining of the year. It has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a growing fan base. As entertianment writer Erik Kain wrote for Forbes, “I watched My Lady Jane at first as a skeptic. I thought it looked like another sappy girlboss series, but it ended up being delightfully funny with an outrageously wonderful cast and a really fun story that definitely deserved at least one more season to tie up loose ends. The characters were complex. The heroine was flawed and relatable. It was like a much less cynical The Great and deserved as many seasons as Hulu’s hit period rom-com.” Why then, was it canceled?
On the heels of last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes, it’s clear that the show has become another casualty of the streaming model, whose issues have yet to be resolved. For one, after the episodes dropped all at once in June, the show received little promotion, and after just seven weeks on the Prime platform, it was deemed unworthy of continuation. “My Lady Jane's unceremonious cancellation despite positive reviews and fan support shows how streaming has completely changed the game, it has led to the belief that if something isn't an instant hit then it doesn't deserve the chance to continue,” wrote Roxy Simons wrote for Yahoo News.
Unlike in network television, the binge-drop model doesn’t give shows enough time to develop a fan base. “Schitt’s Creek” and “Breaking Bad,” she points out, took multiple seasons to build, but then became massive successes. Shows like “My Lady Jane,” “The Midnight Club,” “Everything I Know About Love,” “The Wilds,” “Teenage Bounty Hunters” and others I’ve written about have fallen prey to the same seemingly arbitrary and hasty decision-making by studio execs, despite the time and effort poured into their production. A distressing through-thread is that the shows canceled more quickly are often those focused on women, the LGBTQ+ community, disabled people, and people of color. Fans have started a petition to try to save the show on another network, which is not unprecedented.
This pattern is not only a bummer for viewers who don’t get closure on the shows they’ve devoted their time to watching and become invested in, but a testament to the growing instability of the television industry writ large. Under the streaming model, actors, writers, and crew sign onto short-lived streaming shows with limited episode runs, making their employment increasingly precarious, as I wrote last year for Prism. Whereas television writers and actors used to sign onto multi year contracts with 20+ episode runs per season, affording them benefits and a modicum of predictability in their income, we are now in an age of both a scarcity and overwhelm of content. But it’s clear this isn’t sustainable. In fact, streamers seem to be changing their subscription models to once again include ads, or offer subscription bundles – kind of like, I don’t know, cable television. The Golden Age of Streaming was perhaps too good to be true. With new agreements in place to better remunerate actors and writers, it looks like execs are upping their prices and resuming ads so they don’t take a hit and can continue lining their pockets, creative process and viewing experience be damned.
I’d love to give “My Lady Jane” a full-throated recommendation to anyone who appreciates a touch of whimsy, but the fact that we won’t be getting more makes it harder to do so. At least, unlike some other shows, it’s a fairly satisfying ending without a cliffhanger– but I wouldn’t want to spoil anything more.
What I’m Watching: In other British YA-to-television adaptations, I watched all of Netflix’s “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” in one day. Though I found the main character annoying at first, I was ultimately impressed by the miniseries’ deft handling of the central murder mystery and the surprising darkness of the story’s unfolding— with some surprising crossover casting with “My Lady Jane”! (For more teen mysteries, check out the first season of “Cruel Summer” on Freeform.)