The Royals

Royals is absent any thrill, any of that ticklish delight that makes shows like this pop.

While The Royals swings wildly from satire to sentimentality, from romance to raunch, and from camp to, well, crap, and only in the latter does it find its footing.

The hourlong drama often plays like an extended MTV music video interspersed with dialogue.

A wan, chintzy soap that can’t compete with reality–either Britain’s or E!’s.

Mostly, though, the fluctuations in tone are jarring, from wacky and screwball to earnest and warmhearted at the drop of a tiara. And while subsequent episodes keep spinning out new conflicts and crises, there’s going to have to be some generous grading on a curve to make this qualify as the guilty pleasure it’s clearly intended to become.