On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 8:02 PM Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 4:11 PM 'Dave Sikula' via TVorNotTV < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> I was using Iannucci solely as an example of someone who didn't want his >> cast to have uniformly bad accents (as in Americans do phony-English >> accents or Brits mangling American). >> >> That said, though (and speaking of disappointing series), WTF was up with >> "Avenue 5?" I watched every episode and still have no idea of what it was >> about. other than its crummy plot. >> > > I adored Avenue 5, and related to the topic of accents, I found the jokes > and usage of Hugh Laurie’s accent(s) to be well crafted. > Here's the part where I take back everything I said about The Great and I sincerely regret recommending the series. I saw in Wikipedia that Catherine published her memoirs and I checked my library app to see if they were available as an ebook. They weren't but I could borrow a biography, so I did and started reading it. Her story is fascinating and would make a great TV miniseries or series. It also has nothing in common with The Great besides the names. The comparison for The Great to history would be F Troop or Hogan's Heroes. When I watched The Great I knew instinctively that there were major things that couldn't be accurate. Catherine would not have shown up alone at the Russian court. She at the least would have her own ladies in waiting. The court seemed too insular; as a growing power there would have been ambassadors from the other powers there. Giving Catherine only one servant, while understandable for casting reasons, seemed wrong. The war with Sweden seemed to belong to an earlier period. And in fact the war with Sweden was fought in Peter the Great's time and was over decades before Catherine went to St Petersburg. The relevant European power struggle in Catherine's day was between Prussia and Austria and that was the catalyst for both Catherine's betrothal and her coup. Peter's aunt Elizabeth was Empress of Russia. Peter the Great had changed the law for the tsar's succession from oldest male heir to anyone the tsar appoints which led to the possibility of rule by empress. After being passed over several times Elizabeth staged a bloodless coup to become empress. She was childless and adopted her sister's young son Peter as heir to the throne. He was a German prince who never wanted to go to Russia or to become a ruler. Peter and Catherine were married when Peter was 16 and Catherine was 15. Peter didn't become tsar until a decade later when Elizabeth died and Catherine deposed him 6 months after that. As I said, a fascinating history and it had nothing to do with the TV series. -- 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/CAJE-FiG9R%3DzkBKEKPwY1Cm0aaGBvBHooWsk2s1Q5zwd1y-dH%3Dw%40mail.gmail.com.
