{alltv} 'Pillars' tough to follow

The Shawshank Redemption Commemorative Giclee

The Pillars of the Earth possesses all the pillars of recent TV historical dramas.

This may prompt eye-rolling among historians, who won't see obvious connections between, say, ancient Rome and 16th-century England.

But in terms of TV shows?

A certain sameness is creeping into the historical dramas we've seen lately, despite the fact that centuries separate their time frames.

The latest entry is The Pillars of the Earth, an eight-hour mini-series that debuts across Canada on Friday with a two-hour instalment on The Movie Network and Movie Central, as well as in the United States on the cable network Starz. Technically speaking, the project -- which was shot in Hungary and Austria -- is a Canadian/German co-production.

Based on a 1989 book by Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth has an impressive international cast that includes Ian McShane, Donald Sutherland, Rufus Sewell, Matthew Macfadyen, Alison Pill and Gordon Pinsent, among others. But in the first two hours, at least, having that many cooks in the kitchen makes it tough to follow.

The Pillars of the Earth focuses on the religious and political turmoil of 12th-century England, as a dark secret threatens to disrupt the succession to the throne. That wider plot is advanced and revealed through the construction of a magnificent new cathedral in Kingsbridge, after the old one mysteriously burns down.

There's good and evil, diplomacy and double-crossings, fighting and fornicating -- you know, all the usual crap.

On the positive side, McShane makes an outstanding villain. He plays Deacon Waleran Bigod, a ruthless manipulator who believes that gaining personal power within the Catholic Church is the best way to serve God.

McShane is so great at being evil, it's hard to believe it's the same actor who made us chuckle in the quirky British series Lovejoy. Then again, McShane has far more darkness than light on his professional resume -- including his portrayal of Al Swearengen in Deadwood -- so the playfulness of Lovejoy is the exception rather than the rule.

It's the good-guy characters in The Pillars of the Earth -- namely Prior Philip (Macfadyen) and Tom Builder (Sewell) -- who are somewhat bland. Nonetheless, Tom does something early in the proceedings that makes it tough for us to accept him as someone for whom we should be rooting.

We have admired CBC's The Tudors through the years, and if you're familiar with that series, The Pillars of the Earth is a splashier and flashier version.

Occasionally, the violence in The Pillars of the Earth spills into the territory of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the gory Roman thriller that, not coincidentally, originates on Starz in the U.S.

Overall, The Pillars of the Earth isn't bad. But we admit to a sense of fatigue with the glut of TV period pieces detailing distant history (and there's another one on the way with The Borgias, set in the 15th century, that will air next year on CTV in Canada and Showtime in the U.S.).

Too much of anything dulls the senses. In that regard, what's past is not always a present.