Ekaterina

I have long been a student of Russian history and have seen a few Catherine II projects over the years. Catching Ekaterina on Amazon Prime was an incredible treat. My husband loved it as well and knows nothing of Russian history.

It's gripping, haunting, and some scenes will just stick with you (namely, in Season 3). The casting is fantastic: Catherine's many lovers are appropriately, sublimely sexy and Yuliya Aug is FANTASTIC as Empress Elizaveta. She really sets the tone as this powerful, intense presence throughout Catherine's introduction to Russia.

Season 2 features Sergei Kotalkov as advisor Nikita Panin who is the powerhouse of the season. Less scenery chewing than Elizaveta but engrossing. The world expands beyond Catherine to include others such as her illegitimate child, Alexei; Catherine's Lady in Waiting, Sofia Stepanova (played by Lyubava Greshnova) is the other MVP.

The problem with Season 2 is it covers a VERY large part of Catherine's reign, so much so Season 3 is actually a flashback which is very jarring at first.

Season 3 takes some strong historical liberties to expand our characters and humanize them. Nikita Panin has another stellar season with a softer side, Catherine has a couple of stellar(!) scenes, Alexei Orlov gets his time to shine, and they try to retcon Paul's wife (hideous villain in S2!) which makes no sense with how they portrayed her in S2, but I'll take it.

The most powerful performance is that of the "second" Elizaveta Peteovna, played by Angelina Strechina. Incredible. The finale of S3 will leave you feeling something, that's for sure.

I also liked how they would dub the actors in different languages appropriate for the location: Frederick II of Prussia would speak German. In Naples it's dubbed in Italian. The Poles in Polish, et cet. It adds a bit of immersion and I enjoyed it; in fact there is a funny and heartwarming scene between a Russian and German character in S3 that plays on this fact. So you're watching it subtitled one English but can hear the two different languages.

Only criticisms are that the special effects/fighting scenes are pretty weak, even by S3 when you can tell they got a better budget. Also, the Potemkin+Catherine love theme is waaaaay overused. They needed a second theme in S2. :)

You'll learn a lot and enjoy the show along the way. If you enjoyed the intrigue of Game of Thrones, you'll enjoy Ekaterina.

I'm not sure what some reviewers are complaining about here. No this is not some historical masterpiece but it is an enjoyable historical drama nonetheless with great costumes and scenery and the show portrays the characters with shades of light and dark so that they are not all good or all bad. I disagree with a previous reviewer who says the show portrays Peter III as only incompetent. If the reviewer had bothered to watch the full first series they would see that Peter is shown as trying to be a good emperor eventhough his judgement was misguided in some fatal aspects. It also shows the ruthless streak that Catherine herself had, which she needed to have in order to survive.

Apart from the first episode where the narrator is giving a historical overview of Russia at the time and says that Russia is feared by its weak neighbours, this show much less state propaganda than say a show like Madame Secretary (which I also enjoy) where America always saves the day and seems to have only a wholly altruistic foreign policy, which we all know not to be true. But as it's a tv show, and we should be discerning enough not to believe everything a tv program tells us, one can take it with a grain of salt and an eye roll.

The period of Catherine the great and her rise is very interesting and it is incredible how she managed to survive the odds against her and rise to be an empress, so I would definitely recommend this show. Oh and I am neither Russian or American so this is review is coming from a neutral territory!

My review is based on s1 only. I know s2 is available but in the US. I was watching it in native Russian with English subs. I think subs were above average but still didn't portray the rich dialogue. Many words that I have long forgotten made me smile when they were spoken.

As far as story. I think ep 1 was a bit slow, after that it picked up the pace. I do not know how accurate it was historically as I am no expert, and I def think some things were romanticized, but overall I think it was well done. I also felt last ep could have been full length with much more detail on 2 main events, hence why it's 7/10 not 8/10.

As to what others been saying about the Petr the 3rd, his main undoing was clearly outlined and I have no pity for him for that reason. Whether he got a fair shake or not, who knows, but at least they dealt with it rather bluntly, which is not usual for such a series.

Unbelievable great! Fascinating,the details,the costumes,the action...and Ecaterina is HUGE! Thank You Russia for this amazing series!

I'm generally a fan of historical fiction and am not naive as to where most fall in terms of historical accuracy. For Ekaterina, I have heard it is much closer to history than most, though I cannot confirm it for myself as I personally have little knowledge of Russia's history. But the costuming and sets are stunning and the story feels more political with every choice having ramifications on the European field than most tend to go into. They tend to simply seek power for power's sake. But in Ekaterina, the political side feels much more relevant.

And if that's not enough to convince any fan of historical drams, then watch it simply for the character of Empress Elizaveta. The actress dominated every scene as the real Empress likely did in life.