'The Royals': Are The Critics Bowing Down To E!'s First Scripted Drama?

Tonight US audiences get their first look at ‘The Royals’, E!’s new (and first ever) scripted drama, focusing on a fictional British royal family. Starring Elizabeth Hurley as the feisty matriarch Queen Helena, the series looks to be as melodramatic as ‘90210’ and as decadent as ‘Gossip Girl’. But is 'The Royals' actually worth turning over an hour of your Sunday evening to?

Perhaps the show 's creators drew a little too much inspiration from the reality realms for the series, rather than the actual British royal family, which would make for a more intriguing plot.

“It turns out the show indulges no stereotypes of British upper-crust sophistication, instead making its royals into dull copies of any generic American celebrity clan,” writes The Atlantic’s Spencer Kornhaber. Adding that the series ‘feels utterly charmless and out of time’.

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“The Royals is bespoke trash,” concludes Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik. “Like the artfully ripped Sex Pistols shirt Eleanor wears in one episode, it feels deliberately distressed, trying too hard.”

But while some will of course revel in the show’s trashiness, others may actually end up finding new respect for the Kardashian clan, who after ten seasons on E! really are the closest thing the network has to royalty.

‘The Royals’ premieres on E! in the US on March 15th at 10pm and in the UK on March 25th.