Catherine the Great has a great cast, beautiful costumes and sets and intriguing narrative yet it feels like something is missing as it falls just a bit short in this first episode. This is new four-part drama by HBO and being shown on Sky Atlantic. Catherine is the Empress of Russia between 1762 and 1796, she ruled the largest country on Earth for 30 years while maintaining an interesting private life. The opening captions sets the scene about Catherine’s rule which follows: "Catherine's turbulent reign began in 1762 with a military coup. She seized power from her husband Emperor Peter III who died soon after – in mysterious circumstances. Surrounded by enemies and fighting off rival challenges to her throne, Catherine’s rule is far from secure.”
Catherine the Great is played by the one and only Helen Mirren. She is an outstanding actress with her long career with some amazing roles. In recent years she has become a specialist at becoming royalty. Mirren does an incredible job in showing the different sides of this character. In this first episode we see she is a ruthless leader as she fights to keep her throne yet she is a loving mother. However, she is losing people to put her trust into as more people are betraying her. Catherine doesn’t show much emotion in her face yet when there are close-ups on Mirren you can see in her eyes that she is hiding so much but she has to remain appearing strong otherwise others will see her weaknesses and use it against her. Mirren will do this character justice of showing this story of a woman who is resented on all sides as she doesn’t follow traditional feminine rules but instead is her own person and does what she wants and feels right for herself.
Many people want the power that Catherine has including her frustrated lover Orlov (Richard Roxburgh), he wants to marry the Empress yet she won't agree to it. The army claim they put Catherine on the throne and they can take her off at any time they want. However, Catherine also has problems with her son as some of her trusted court believe she is only regent until her son, Paul (Joseph Quinn), reaches his majority and can take over. We also meet Prisoner Number One, another of Catherine's threats to the throne. Prisoner Number One is also known as Ivan VI, who claims he is the rightful heir to the throne but he has been confined in Shlisselburg prison for all his life and has been sent mad in the process.
In this first episode we see our Empress struggle with her conscience with decisions she must make to stop more people claiming they deserve the throne. More people are moving against the Empress thus she orders to have Ivanites killed for certain reasons. Lieutenant Merovitch tries to stir up trouble while Grigory Potemkin (Jason Clarke) is making a big impression at court and has caught the eye of the Empress and her friend, the Countess Bruce (Gina McKee).
Overall every part of this episode including the cast who have great performances, the writing is strong and the set and costumes are amazing. However, there feels like something is missing, even though it has all the right ingredients to make a great show something is off. Maybe this is due to it being the first episode and everything is being set up. Hopefully the next episode will be better, this first episode might have fell a bit short as even though there was something going on and we are introduced to the main theme of these episodes, which is Catherine fighting to keep her throne, but nothing is suggested what will happen or what might happen next.
Catherine the Great episode one isn’t great yet but here’s to hoping it will get better.
