Marco Polo

I have just finished watching episode 9. So many reviews and people have been hating on this series. Honestly, it is seldom that i watch something for nearly 9 hours straight....and this was one of them.

It all starts very slow, but it captures a beautiful and strange world. Its the story of a Venetian explorer who gets caught up in the power struggles of the Mongol empire.

The problem is that people try to compare it with game of thrones. Its not game of thrones, its a different genre, and it feels unfair to compare the two.

The production value is superb, the acting, while not the greatest, it feels right. A movie doesn't need to be a Shakespearean play with lots of drama, as some seem to think.

Honestly, if this series had been released before game of thrones, it would have had a whole different reception, i really do not understand this mentality of people to compare series with others that are entirely different in setting and even budget.

9/10 Make a choice for yourself and ignore the critics on this one. Just the visuals and the portrayal of a mystical and exotic east through the eyes of a European explorer are reason enough for me to look forward to the next season. I personally do wish to see more adventure instead of politics, as this is about Marco Polo the great adventurer after all!

This show is great and worth watching but it falls short of being a masterpiece due to an anti-climactic inconclusive ending. Probably because it wasn't supposed to end with season 2 but got cancelled prematurely just like netflix does with all of its shows.

Please bring back season 3.......its a very good show.. Want to know more about marco polo!

Although littered with historical and biographical inaccuracies and exaggerations, Marco Polo has a good quality production and creates an escapist atmosphere of a mythologized past. The acting is average, and the story lines and characters are intriguing. The settings and camera work are great, and rather than solely focusing on Marco Polo the show has many other characters' roles and perspectives. The sense of power struggles is well laid out, although not even close to Game of Thrones level in scope (obviously).

In terms of any comparisons and/ or contrasts of other historical-epic type t.v. shows, I would say those that enjoyed the shows Rome, Spartacus, Vikings, and Shogun would enjoy this show. This show isn't quite as good as those particular shows, but is better than shows like Black Sails, Davinci's Demons, and The Tudors.

Considering it's Netflix first venture into historical-epic/ fantasy type genre, it's really good quality and more signs of great original content on the Netflix horizon.

All in all, I give it an 8.

Marco Polo is such an entertaining and underrated show, the only thing I'm mad at is it took as long as it did for me to watch it. You can tell they put a lot of money into this show by the sheer scale of it. Although Season one was really good it really takes off on season two. It almost feels like a different show in season two. This was one of Netflix's first big shows when Netflix was first taking off. Is it historically accurate? No...but who cares? It doesn't claim to be. It's just an entertaining show that's very well done! They canceled it too early but I read that it was so ridiculously expensive to make that they didn't have a choice. Still, glad we got two amazing seasons out of it.