Inside the Body of Henry VIII

So, I'm watching this thing I DVR'd about the health history of Henry VIII.

Not bad. Some of the insights are interesting and it does include things I haven't heard much about before. That said, it is very speculative and I have a lot of trouble believing things I see on TV history documentaries. This particular show is not too implausible, but the National Geographic channel (where it came on) has a pretty bad track record when it comes to history documentaries. It's like the History Channel; both include improbable claims, conspiracy theories, and lots of Nazi stuff. I hope we can at least be reasonably sure this program focusing on Henry Tudor wouldn't include much of the last two.

Even PBS can be fairly unreliable sometimes. When fictional programs like Mad Men have less obvious inaccuracies you know there's something wrong with the state of television. But this was better than most.

Things I liked:
-Detailed timeline on Henry's health history including major illnesses and accidents which seemed reliable and useful. His biographies don't go into a lot of this and it's very relevant to his life story.
-Attempts to put facts in historical context. They go into medical practices in Tudor England quite a bit. They also go into changes in culture and standards of beauty. Generally, for such a short piece (an hour with commercials; my DVR cut off the first five minutes) the historians involved make an effort to help the viewer see things in proper perspective.
-They speculate on Henry's fear of disease in the wake of losing his father and brother. Something very relevant to history you don't see mentioned much in his biographies. It makes sense given the circumstances. Since this was Tudor England, his concern for his health did him more harm than good. There were leeches involved. Still some doubts in my mind; if he cared that much about his health would he have jousted and jumped on his horse so often.
-Lots of contemporary accounts from reliable sources!
-People often underestimate how his jousting accidents and nasty leg ulcers affected him and the rest of his life. Contemporary accounts go into this, which means it was pretty serious. Talking about the possibility of the death of the King was treason and indicating you thought there was something wrong with the King was almost as bad. The fact that multiple accounts from within England survive of this indicates it was probably a big deal.
-Henry was "the Joseph Stalin of England."
-Lots of stuff on Tudor diets; really fascinating for any Tudor fangirl.
-They do point out a lot of it was his own fault.

Didn't like:
-Historical details rushed through/forgotten. Only to be expected given how short it was.
-Too sympathetic. Not exactly nice, but too sympathetic to a guy who decapitated two of his own wives.
-Talk about the inspection of Henry's bodily "fluids" and other things I do not want to think about ever.
-Little on his mental health which is much more relevant.
-They seem to think his major personality change occurred during his joust accident in early 1536. I disagree; he was already a jerk when he locked away his wife and daughter. He might have gotten more paranoid and had some personality changes related to his head injury, but he didn't change from nice Prince Charming to The Decapitator because of one event. Honestly I question him being Prince Charming to begin with; he just had an easier time presenting himself as such when he was young.
-Continuing the myth of sexy young King Henry. Henry Tudor was good looking by Tudor standards for a royal. If you know a lot about Tudor standards of beauty and royal standards of beauty, that doesn't make him a hottie at all by today's standards. Also, people tend to flatter the royals a lot. Not to say he was always the fat slob he's known for being; there was a time he was tall and muscular and genuinely attractive to the ladies at court.
-They mention the story of his body supposedly exploding in the coffin, but don't analyze the plausibility of that which I would have liked to see a medical perspective on.