Henry VIII may not have been the most important king in history, but his ill-mannered behavior towards his wives has certainly earned him an exalted place in the history of movies.

There have been more than a dozen made about his 38-year reign, most of which was devoted to searching England for a son-bearing wife. Most of the movies were sorry affairs (it’s doubtful anyone remembers the 1971 British comedy, “Carry on Henry,” starring Sid James), but a few achieved greatness in grasping the essential madness of this heir-hungry monarch. Far better was the 1966 Oscar-winning “Man For All Seasons,” with Robert Shaw as Henry and Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More, whose moral stance against the king cost him his life. And no 13-year-old girl who ever saw “Anne of the Thousand Days” will ever forget the 1969 romantic retelling of the marriage of Anne Boleyn to Henry, starring an ethereal Genevieve Bujold and perfectly-cast Richard Burton.

It’s hard to explain the existence of the latest “Henry VIII,” which begins its two-part run this Sunday night at 9:00 on PBS, as part of its exalted “Masterpiece Theater” series. In 1971 the BBC delivered us “The Six Wives of Henry VIII.” No detail was too small for that 540-minute saga of Henry’s multiple marriages, which lives on in a handsome boxed set at your local video store. And yet the British have seen fit to revisit the story yet again, proving that even the best of yarns can be told too often. This “Henry” has neither the passion of “A Man For All Seasons” or the sexuality of “Anne of the Thousand Days.” It reduces the poetic rage of this great character from previous scripts – “I will have her,” Burton boomed in that film of his would-be bride, “if I have to split the world in two and throw both halves into the void!” – to this version’s flat-footed homilies. “For you to be successful as a King,” Henry concludes wearily at the end of this “Henry VIII,” “you must first be successful as a man.”

The blame doesn’t lie with the performances. Director Pete Travis owes whatever audience he gets for this pedestrian effort to the terrific appeal of Ray Winstone as Henry. The star of “Sexy Beast” doesn’t deliver anywhere near the charge of that great role, but it’s fun to hear his cockney accent in a tale traditionally told with the tone of proper British elocution. He’s hardly royal material, but after a while you’ll buy him with a scepter and crown. The trouble is that Mr. Travis doesn’t seem to have a clue where to put the camera; half the time you can’t even find Mr. Winstone in the frame, let alone see him close-up. In a story that involves emotional nuance, that’s unforgivable. He makes equally little of Helena Bonham Carter, a perfect choice to play the tragic Anne Boleyn; even though most of Part One is devoted to her story, Ms. Carter rarely gets a chance to reveal herself. Why she falls for Henry is a mystery you’ll have to solve elsewhere. The only fresh detail you’ll get from this “Henry VIII” is the grotesque and unnecessary view of Boleyn’s head after it had been removed from the rest of her body by an executioner. It all but rolls across the floor.

After turning the Boleyn chapter into a tedious two-hour saga, Mr. Travis floors it for the last four wives, cramming their stories into the second half as though required to by British law. Henry marries Jane Seymour and wreaks havoc with the countryside, while his lieutenants wring their hands in despair. This version turns a revolutionary solder named Robert Aske (played by Sean Bean), never a major player in previous Henry stories, into a full-blown antagonist, at least until he’s executed and hanged – putting a crimp into Henry’s relationship with Seymour. Their fighting leads to her own death from illness shortly after producing the boy he always wanted. More marriages, more deaths, more raging battles follow, enabling Mr. Travis to shoot yet more scenes of Henry on horseback. Where previous tellings of the Henry tale make use of its insight into religion and power, this one only displays the king’s unique ability to gallop endlessly across the countryside, and Mr. Travis’s penchant for filming it. Mr. Travis may not be much of a storyteller, but he’s got a future in show business as the director of the Kentucky Derby.

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“We’ve gotten spanked,” NBC’s programming tsar, Jeff Zucker, admitted to the Los Angeles Times the other day, referring to the ABC ratings juggernaut known as “Desperate Housewives.” But in the article it was disclosed by Karey Burke, who Mr. Zucker removed last year from her job as an NBC development executive, that she’d read and loved “Desperate Housewives” before ABC even saw the script. “The tone was really black and sexy,” Ms. Burke remembered. But she claimed that it was deemed “too female” and eventually it was rejected by the NBC brass. Mr. Zucker denied to the Times that he’d read the script. Not that I believe him, but should a programming chief really be bragging that he doesn’t even read the scripts his own deputies love? How Mr. Zucker keeps his job in the face of so much failure – “Hawaii” is dead, the cancellation of “Father of The Pride” is imminent, and even “Joey” is on the ropes – is one of the great mysteries of Hollywood. Even by the standards of the television business, Mr. Zucker’s stupidity is staggering.