'The White Queen' Starz New Series About the Brutal & Sexually Charged English Dynasty the Plantagenet's Premieres Aug 10th

"The White Queen" is set to premiere Season 1 this Saturday on Starz. The new original series will dive into the English dynasty of the Plantagenet's. They were a brutal and sexually driven family that lived in a era of crime, filth and violence. 

Starz has seen the success of HBO's "Game of Thrones" and Showtime's "The Tudors" and wanted to share a different story that had not been told yet. 

"The Plantagenets have been completely upstaged by the Tudors, even in England, where their history - especially that of their women - has been sorely -neglected," says executive producer and best-selling author Philippa Gregory, who wrote the three historical novels upon which the series is based: The White Queen, The Red Queen and The Kingmaker's Daughter. "If you like the Tudors," she notes, "you will absolutely adore the Plantagenets, because they are even madder and badder. Their era was full of crime and violence, filth and poverty, yet the glamour was intense and the chivalry was amazing. There's nothing quite like it." (via Seattle Pi) 

The series is scheduled to be 10 parts for the first season. It will focus on three women, former commoner Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson), mad matriarch Margaret Beaufort (Amanda Hale) and the teenage political pawn Anne Neville (Faye Marsay). 

Ferguson says this about the women characters in the show, "These are not women who just sit back, do needlework and have babies. They are tough and unrelenting and will do anything to outmaneuver each other and protect the safety of their heirs. Their strength is even more astounding because you could be off the throne with the flip of a coin - or the drop of an ax."

"The White Queen" premieres Saturday night August 10th at 10 p.m. EST on Starz.