Ellen Gray | Meyers makes a right handsome Henry VIII

THE TUDORS. 10 p.m. Sunday, Showtime.

SINCE SHOWTIME itself admits that its latest series, "The Tudors," was conceived as an attempt to turn the English royal dynasty into something akin to "The Sopranos," I have just one question:

What happened to Tony?

Because honestly, it would be easier to buy James Gandolfini - at least the late-'90s version, the one many of us first saw as Tony Soprano - in the role of Henry VIII than it is Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The Irish-born Meyers, who's no doubt destined to be People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive one of these days, made a terrific Elvis.

Loved him in "Bend It Like Beckham." Adored him in "Match Point."

Henry? C'mon.

HBO may have given a balding, slightly pudgy actor the TV role of a lifetime, but Showtime, while insisting that its writers and producers feel free to push beyond all sorts of other boundaries, doesn't necessarily extend the same freedom to its casting directors.

We're talking, after all, about the home of one gorgeous dope-dealing suburban mom ("Weeds"), a terrorist group full of hotties ("Sleeper Cell") and a serial killer ("Dexter") whom most women would be happy to take home to mother.

And for those who might not be so inclined, Showtime has "The L Word," where I'm pretty sure the "L" stands for lipstick.

Showtime, whose press kits are almost as gorgeous as its actors, put the pouty-lipped Meyers on the cover of the kit for "The Tudors."

Hair close-cropped, the hilt of a sword next to his face, he looks like a rock star.

Which is kind of the point.

Because on one of the glossy pages inside, "Tudors" costume designer Joan Bergin declares that Henry, who famously married six women, "was the Mick Jagger of his day."

Jagger, of course, is now too old to be considered.

If we're talking age, you could argue that the 29-year-old Meyers has as much right to play Henry as any of the actor's predecessors.

As nearly as I can figure the chronology in the six I've seen of the 10 episodes that make up the first season, Henry would perhaps be in his early to mid-30s during the period when he was falling in love with Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer), which happens fairly early in the season.

Richard Burton was in his mid-40s when he played Henry at that juncture in "Anne of a Thousand Days," Keith Michell in his early 40s when he took on all of Henry's marital adventures in "The Six Wives of Henry VIII."

Life expectancy was shorter in the 16th century - Henry got in all his marrying, divorcing and beheading by the time of his death at 55 - and based on portraits of the time, Botox wasn't yet in vogue.

By those standards, Meyers would be well into middle age.

By ours, though, he's just about the right age to play a high school senior on a CW show.

Henry became king and married Katharine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), his brother's 23-year-old widow, shortly before his 18th birthday, and though there are hints in "The Tudors" that theirs was once a love story, it's a love story the show's buried in favor of wife-to-be No. 2.

In choosing to fast-forward to the sexier part of the story, "Tudors" creator Michael Hirst may be leaving Henry's handsomest years behind, but it does give him an opportunity to deal with his break with the Roman Catholic Church and to paint a portrait of a king far more complicated than most rock stars.

For those less interested in the roots of Protestantism in England than in sex and sword fights, there's a pretty romance involving Henry's sister (Gabrielle Anwar), who for some reason, perhaps to reduce confusion with some other Marys, is called Princess Margaret in "The Tudors." (Henry did have a sister Margaret, who married James IV of Scotland, but it was Mary Tudor who was sent off to marry an old man and instead fell in love with a young one.)

There are other fictions introduced here - a king of Portugal is inexplicably substituted for a king of France and there's a wholly unnecessary murder - but Mary/Margaret's is a lesser known story, and even without the embellishments, makes for good television.

Sam Neill's a fine Cardinal Wolsey and Jeremy Northam a positively utopian Thomas More, though both at times seem like grownups who've wandered into a children's crusade.

I don't want to beat up on Meyers here. He does justice to Hirst's Henry, if not entirely to history's, and being young and good-looking is hardly a crime.

But like Tony Soprano, Henry VIII brings more to the table than charisma: Corrupted by absolute power, he's a bit of a monster.

I'm just not sure that a man who could probably hypnotize people just by looking at them would ever have needed to cut off anyone's head. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.