michfie

This could have been great - an American Downtown Abbey in the city. But none of the characters are likeable and so many of the actors are stiff and deliver rapid fire speech. Christine Baransky could be Aunt Violet with her wry wit, but she just lands as bitter and nasty. And I find her acceptance of a black secretary, and as friend to her white niece, entirely unbelievable. Carrie Coon speaks so fast and with no intonation whatsoever; Morgan Spector is wooden; the lead actor, Louisa Jacobsen, is just flat and inauthentic. The only real talent that meets expectations is Denee Benton and Cynthia Nixon.

This is a fabulous series, with no reviews despite being 7 years old. Much better than a bunch of other historical documentaries I've seen with stupid stock images and videos inserted, and appalling narrators. This has a highly credible feel about it and the narrator does a great job.

I found the approach fascinating, traversing through politics, religion (so much religion) wars, power grabs, royalties, exploration, art, music, finance, fandom, everything!

Like the narrator, (who speaks English with an impeccable English accent), I'm an Australian who feels a strong pull towards Europe. This was a wonderfully produced and executed series.

Halfway through I had the sense I had watched this before....but I hadn't. Sometimes I lost the thread of the show completely and had to go back to the title and précis to connect the dots. Disjointed and with character and time jumps handled clumsily, this desperately tried to be a more sophisticated and compelling version of itself, and failed terribly.

I really don't understand the minimum character limit requirement in these reviews. I've said what needs to be said and now have to pad out my review, just like the show creators padded out the series, to meet some arbitrary minimum word count (or episode count).