The second season of The Tudors, the series that brings the sensibility of the nighttime soap to historical drama, premieres Sunday night on Showtime. The story of Henry VIII, his six wives and the break with the Roman church has proven irresistible for generations. Showtime doesn't skimp on the politics -- it's not always easy to keep all the players straight -- but the series' major innovation is to not only ramp up the sex, but to provide a Henry that the average

viewer would want to watch having sex.

Reaction to the first season of The Tudors tended to track pretty closely with how much a given observer bought Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the role of Henry VIII. It's not so much that Rhys Meyers, who before The Tudors had been best known for taking on the role of Elvis Presley, is gorgeous and trim where our cultural image of Henry is that he was neither. The king was reputed to be handsome as a young man, but the Henry we see in The Tudors is no longer all that young; the second season covers him in his forties and Rhys Meyers just turned 30. An even bigger problem is that Rhys Meyers just doesn't have a regal air. He seems more like someone who should be getting thrown out of Hollywood clubs with Spencer Pratt than the ruler of a great nation.

Fortunately for The Tudors, the series has benefited from excellent supporting performances. Natalie Dormer, who plays Anne Boleyn, took some hits from critics in season one, but she brought an interesting combination of seductiveness and innocence to the part. As the current season will follow her story to its well-known sad end, Dormer will have more of an opportunity to show what she can do.

Sam Neill, whose weaselly Cardinal Wolsey was the best thing about the first year, won't be back this time around. But Peter O'Toole makes for a decent substitute. The film legend plays Pope Paul III, who battled Henry for control of the church in England. Like most Renaissance popes, Paul III was no candidate for sainthood, so O'Toole should be able to use his talent for playing sly to great advantage.

Events on The Tudors are now approaching the era in which the historical Henry crossed over into outright tyranny, with the English Reformation sustaining quite the death toll as a result. This presents a problem for the producers: if they show Henry as he really was, viewers will be turned off; but if they pretend that he was some sort of tortured existentialist whose biggest problem was that he couldn't keep it in his robes, the accuracy issues become even more pronounced.

But series creator Michael Hirst, whose credits include Cate Blanchett's two turns as Henry's daughter Elizabeth, has promised accuracy, which means Henry as a borderline villain. As he breaks with former mentor Sir Thomas More (Jeremy Northam) over the latter's continuing loyalty to Rome, and begins to stray again almost immediately after asserting the right to divorce Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne, our sympathies will likely veer in the direction of Henry's victims.