The Great

The way how they play and remastering the history is genius! As being Russian, I find this show absurdly brilliant and funny. That's interesting to follow how the show is portraying current narratives with well known facts from 18 century, as it all together creates absolutely masterpiece satire Universe!

This has been one of the best shows of the year. I binged watched it over the weekend and it was great. It is loosely based on history but has an entertaining twist and the ending cries for a second season. Elle Fanning does a great job as well as the other characters. Some you immediately like, some you hate but all of them grow on you as the season progresses.

I've heard so many good things about The Great ever since it first came out a few years ago but I kept putting it off for some reason. I'm just finishing Season 2 now and I'm actually mad at myself for putting it off for so long. It's freaking hilarious! There's not a weak link on the entire cast but Nicholas Hoult and Belinda Bromilow are the ones that really make this series so good. Hoult & Elle Fanning were both nominated for Emmy's for their work here but Bromilow should've been too. It's obviously not historically accurate, it even says it in the beginning credits, but who cares? It's a comedy. If you want to laugh then go watch this.

The first episode tried to set the stage as an over the top quirky dark comedy. Unfortunately I never really felt the humor was lol funny. It's certainly comical, but more due to the ridiculous nature of the show than for actual jokes/humor. It also gets pretty serious at times and comes across more like a drama especially by the end of the first season. It's inconsistent in that respect.

The cast, characters, set design, are all engrossing and make the show well worth the watch though. Elle Fanning is amazing as usual, but Nicholas Hoult is the stand out here. He plays an incredibly stupid, arrogant emperor and his performance often comes very close to the Joaquin Phoenix level sense of evil. You never know what he's going to do next.

While not a perfect show, and very odd, I am looking forward to the next season. Just don't go in expecting a brilliant comedy, or a historically accurate drama and you'll probably enjoy it as well.

While apparently even historically inaccurate compared to an old Marlene Dietrich movie, The Great is a fantastically entertaining piece of nonsense with Elle Fanning giving a quirky, very funny performance as Catherine and Nicholas Hoult giving a funny, infuriating one as Peter (also a shout out to Phoebe Fox's snarky servant).

The series is consistently entertaining, generally funny, sometimes shocking or horrific, and often just plain nuts. Catherine is an interesting character, both smart and foolish, both strategic and inept, but always moving forward with a blind, frequently insane determination. She's not always sympathetic, and her mistakes are costly, but she's never less than fascinating.

The last episode is a little confusing, and ends on a cliffhanger which doesn't help, but overall the series is wonderful and I look forward to seeing how it all plays out in the next season.