I liked it better than Dave did, but is frustratingly flawed. The revisionism is most definitely not the problem per se, though Catherine’s story is amazing and women empowering enough on its own that it’s not clear why they chose this to give a modern update to. Most of the changes serve to oversimplify a very complex woman and story. They want Russia to be woke to the enlightenment by a group of post me too, post millennials who talk and act more like they live in AOC’s Queens than 18th century St Petersburg.
The above choices are not all bad, and I thought the acting was mostly engaging, and the storytelling coherent (unlike the HBO series, which is quite literally incoherent and almost literally unwatchable). Someone mentioned the frequent, never-nude sex scenes. There is no doubt that if this show were made 7 years ago the three main female leads would have each had double digit minutes total of revealed breasts and buttox. Since the main lead is an actress I can’t help but still think of as 10 years old, I was glad they kept her mostly covered up (a few seconds of side boob, and one lingering, majestic full ass shot which could easily have been one of the famous butt doubles. I had the feeling that this was the kind of production where the female lead had the juice to preclude most nude scenes, they were not going to force lesser billed actresses to take up the slack, which is always kind of creepy. But this also seemed consistent with the ideological line they were trying to walk, maintaining the focus on the predatory and coercive nature of male sexuality while avoiding the neo-Puritanism of some varieties of feminism. I think that also explains the ratio of sexual nudity (low) to sexual verbal profanity (high). People are not naked very much but they say words like “fuc*”, “coc*” and “cun*” a lot. I am not expert on Russian history, but in addition to changes they made to Catherine’s story, they seemed to have played fast and lose with her husband Peter III, who was as I understand the grandson of Peter the Great, not his son. Not sure why they did this, possibly to underline another anachronism, a post Freudian understanding of fathers and sons (also sets up what seems to be a line the screenplay is proud of, the King of Sweden commiserating with Peter that at least his own father was only know as Olaf the Okay). I’m not mad that I spent the time watching it, but somewhat irritated the considerable talents of the actors and production team were not spent on a better executed story. On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 9:32 PM 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV < [email protected]> wrote: > I have no objection to revisionism like that; I loved McNamara's "The > Favorite," one of my favorite plays of recent years is Lucas Hnath's "A > Doll's House, Part 2," and Shakespeare is nothing if not taking old stories > and repurposing them for contemporary audiences. There was just something > about the British smugness of this one that hit all the wrong notes for me. > > What was especially puzzling was, since Catherine is an outsider anyway, > why make her speak in that British accent? Let her be German via America. > It worked for Armando Iannucci in "The Death of Stalin" (another > revisionist take that I enjoyed, by the way). > > --Dave Sikula > > On Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 7:25:29 AM UTC-7, Tom Wolper wrote: >> >> On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 1:01 AM 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> I’m about halfway through episode one and am hard pressed to think of >>> another show I’ve hated as much. Except for Adam Godley, I cant find any >>> saving graces. >>> >>> YMMV. >>> >> >> I did say it caught my attention despite its flaws, not that those flaws >> weren't prominent. The whole season was written by Tony McNamara based on a >> play he wrote and apparently only performed in Sydney years ago. Making >> historical drama means taking historical narratives and bringing them to a >> modern audience in a modern idiom. I don't really identify with McNamara's >> vision but over the course of the season an interesting story develops: a >> young enlightenment era noble woman is brought to the detached, corrupt, >> and decadent Russian court to become empress. Can she gain power, is it >> worth gaining power, and what will she have to sacrifice of her beliefs and >> morals to do it? >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/67625741-0904-46df-b6b4-32c799da384fo%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/67625741-0904-46df-b6b4-32c799da384fo%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYK_AWcn74RovQC%2B1JtKx_%3DoM9Wx0ksZzsmxNp8A0u3BHQ%40mail.gmail.com.
