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Rebecca Ferguson’s Hidden-Gem Historical Series Was Cancelled Too Soon — and We’re Still Mourning It

January 22, 2026

Looking back, it’s kind of wild how casually The White Queen burned through Rebecca Ferguson in just ten episodes. It’s almost as if Starz had no idea it was sitting on a future movie star… or, worse, suspected it and decided to keep things moving anyway. (After all, it had thirty years of history to sift through and a self-imposed miniseries deadline to meet.) For anyone who missed its original run, the show, which dropped in 2013, was a genuinely ambitious historical drama, barreling through decades of sex, political intrigue, and dynastic rot as it tackled one of Britain’s messiest eras, the War of the Roses.

Decades of familial infighting, public executions via wine drownings, secret marriages, and incestous affairs, all told from the point of view of a social-climbing widow rumored to practice witchcraft? That feels like the kind of premise worthy of a Game of Thrones-style run. Instead, The White Queen opted to introduce Ferguson’s Elizabeth Woodville as a calculating survivor in a world that eats women alive, then immediately hit fast-forward on the most interesting parts of her rise. It wasn’t bad… but it definitely could’ve been better, and it’s a piece of Ferguson’s filmography we really should be talking about more.

‘The White Queen’ Proves We Should’ve Seen Rebecca Ferguson’s Reign Coming

Image via Starz

Before she was outsmarting super-spies in the Mission: Impossible franchise or quietly manipulating the fate of entire galaxies as a Bene Gesserit in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune trilogy, Ferguson was already doing her most dangerous work in medieval England. As Elizabeth Woodville in The White Queen, she’s a survivor first and a queen second, quietly formidable from the very first scene as she struggles to toe the line between her Yorkist family and her dead husband’s Lancaster ties. Those opposing sides would constantly push and pull at her as queen, but when audiences first meet Elizabeth, she’s just a recently widowed young woman, appealing to a newly crowned King Edward IV (Max Irons) for access to her husband’s property. She’s timid but calculating, still a bit naive of the world but steadfast in her values and desires.

And Ferguson’s translation of all this trades flashy theatrics for intelligence and control, giving the character a sense of long-range scheming that makes you want to linger with her, even as the show rushes past decades of bloody battles, betrayal, and courtly plotting. It’s a subtle, magnetic presence that immediately signals Ferguson was destined for more than a small-screen period drama, and that Elizabeth is a character worth paying attention to.

Rebecca Ferguson as Rose the Hat offering a flower in Doctor Sleep

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Surrounding the would-be queen is a group of equally capable women charting paths that feel just as compelling. There’s Margaret Beaufort (Amanda Hale), who works relentlessly to secure her son Henry Tudor’s destiny while clinging to her religious self-righteousness; Anne Neville (Faye Marsay), who evolves from frightened pawn to resourceful, morally complex ruler; Isabel Warwick (Eleanor Tomlinson), a woman grappling with loyalty and self-preservation under her father’s shadow; and Lady Woodville (Janet McTeer), Elizabeth’s mother, who works as a puppet master of history, wielding influence and a touch of mysticism to secure her daughter’s place on the throne. Together, they form a web of female power and survival strategies, showing how women maneuvered, manipulated, and endured in a brutal, patriarchal world. But it’s Elizabeth’s story that’s at the center, and Ferguson’s shoulders that carry the show’s bigger ambitions.

A Feminist History Lesson That Flies By Too Quickly

The trade-off to all this potential, though, is time. The show’s decision to condense thirty years into just a handful of episodes means that, even though we’re supposed to be seeing this timeline-altering conflict from a feminist viewpoint, we’re speeding by so quickly, everything seems to just blur.The LA Times criticized its pacing early on, calling it “a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive narrative,” while other critics harped on its glossy set dressings, choice in how it aged its characters, and narrative short-cutting. The story’s milestones were always clear – kings executing their siblings, princes dying in towers, rebellions, treaties, and uncles who usurp thrones belonging to their pre-teen nephews – but the slow burn of moral compromise often passed in montage, which always seemed to leave the viewer yearning for more. And by more, we mean more space to watch Ferguson sharpen into the queen she’s clearly meant to become.

Still, the actress somehow managed to fill every frame she was in with a restless intelligence and subtle menace, making Elizabeth’s maneuvering through widowhood, marriage, and motherhood feel thrilling despite the show’s grim atmosphere and plodding dialogue. She gives weight to the whispers of mysticism surrounding her character – rumors of witchcraft, symbolic rituals, prophetic visions – imbuing Elizabeth with an almost otherworldly presence that the show never fully explores. By the end, it’s clear that Ferguson is doing far more work than the series can contain, and the show’s biggest frustration is that it doesn’t let us fully savor just how brilliant, dangerous, and compelling Elizabeth Woodville could be in Ferguson’s hands.

Watching The White Queen now, it’s impossible not to see Ferguson’s star power fully coming into focus. Long before she hit the mainstream, she was already radiating the presence of a box office draw. That’s really reason enough to revisit this period drama, viewing it not through the lens of history, but as an early showcase for a performer who was quietly building a career filled with interesting, powerful female characters.