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Catherine The Great

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews

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61

USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 8 Ratings

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5.3

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5.3	Your Score
5.3	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 8 Ratings

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Catherine The Great: Episode Four

Now Playing: Catherine The Great: Episode Four

Catherine The Great

Series Details & Credits

HBO | Release Date: October 3, 2019

Summary: The four-part limited series focuses on the later years of the reign of Russian empress Catherine the Great (Helen Mirren) and her relationship with Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin (Jason Clarke).

Genre(s): Drama, Movie/Mini-Series

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Recent Episodes

tbd
S1:E4. Episode #1.4
Air Date: October 24, 2019
tbd
S1:E3. Episode #1.3
Air Date: October 20, 2019
tbd
S1:E2. Episode #1.2
Air Date: October 28, 2019

See all Seasons and Episodes

Metascore

61

Positive:

8

Mixed:

10

Negative:

0

Critic Reviews

80

The Independent Ed Cumming

Jan 3, 2020

Season 1 Review: It helps to have Clarke, Roxburgh and Kinnear, three of the best going, around her, broad-shouldered men in this women’s world. If the dialogue is occasionally over-expository, that’s understandable, and on the whole the starry team makes cantering over all this historical turf look surprisingly intimate. Catherine’s not quite great, yet, but she’s very good. Read full review

80

Los Angeles Times

Robert Lloyd

Oct 21, 2019

Season 1 Review: Mirren is the reason to watch, and reason enough. It’s no knock against the rest of the cast or the production designer or costumers or digital matte painters, who have all acquitted themselves bravely, even brilliantly, to say that there is no other particularly compelling reason to spend four hours in this slice of 18th century history. Read full review

75

Primetimer

Aaron Barnhart

Oct 23, 2019

Season 1 Review: Having Helen Mirren fabulously bring this overlooked monarch to life at a moment when women’s fitness to lead is, unbelievably, still being questioned makes this four-hour romp worthwhile. But I’m struck by two things. Catherine the Great looks and feels like something HBO could have done 15 years ago, and indeed did do 15 years ago with this same team. Read full review

60

Reason.com

Glenn Garvin

Nov 3, 2019

Season 1 Review: In short, there's a zesty story to be told here. But it mostly isn't in this miniseries. Read full review

58

The A.V. Club

Danette Chavez

Oct 21, 2019

Season 1 Review: Catherine The Great’s storytelling never manages to equal the grandeur of its richly detailed set design; as the series unfolds, those extravagant visuals become more and more like façades from the mythical Potemkin villages. ... Mirren and Clarke deliver compelling performances as a clever, iron-willed queen and a soldier turned high-ranking statesman, respectively. Read full review

50

TV Guide Magazine Matt Roush

Oct 14, 2019

Season 1 Review: Opulent if oddly constricted. ... [Mirren is] great, even when trapped in a romance novel. [14-27 Oct 2019, p.11]

50

The Hollywood Reporter

Daniel Fienberg

Oct 21, 2019

Season 1 Review: In effect, the miniseries trims the tawdry and scurrilous details from the monarchy's biography and replaces them with a much more conventional story of a woman whose greatest ideas are supplied by or on behalf of a compelling man. On her own behalf, Catherine mostly fights a repetitive battle to maintain control, Read full review

SEE ALL 18 REVIEWS

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5.3

User Reviews

7

John935

Jan 8, 2022

I am writing this in 2022 having seen 2 of the 4 episodes.
Critics' aggregate score for Catherine the Great is not great. I'll admit it's over-the-top and if it were a feature film it'd be R-rated. But I'm thinking I like this for some of the same reasons some critics didn't: Maybe it shouldI am writing this in 2022 having seen 2 of the 4 episodes.
Critics' aggregate score for Catherine the Great is not great. I'll admit it's over-the-top and if it were a feature film it'd be R-rated. But I'm thinking I like this for some of the same reasons some critics didn't: Maybe it should be over-the-top. Mirren has played many monarchs. In real life she's half-Russian, on her father's side. Sad she must've read some mediocre reviews of this HBO mini-series. But I'm sure she knows she was Great....… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

3

ShefardAlex

Jun 30, 2020

The series initially warns its viewer that only part of everything that is happening is true, but, as was said in the series of one of the heroines 'The First Lie Wins.'

Is everything so bad? Or is everything alright? Need to make out. An avid movie fan or smug intelligentsia will look atThe series initially warns its viewer that only part of everything that is happening is true, but, as was said in the series of one of the heroines 'The First Lie Wins.'

Is everything so bad? Or is everything alright? Need to make out. An avid movie fan or smug intelligentsia will look at all this through the prism of satire and humor, very superficial and stupid, unworthy of their high morals. The Russophobes will be happy. This is not to say that the series is bad, it has a wonderful picture, perfectly selected actors (there are exceptions), excellent outfits and scenery (there are exceptions), sometimes even very funny moments, this series is pleasing to the eye, but it hurts the heart with its hyperbolic image of the Russian nobility of the time of Peter and Catherine. Quite often uneducated and stupid people who just do that fight in the corridors of the palace, beat dishes, drink vodka day and night, and then randomly mingle with lovers and lovers in front of husbands and wives. It’s especially funny to see representatives of America’s ethics, but at the same time everyone doesn’t have paragraphs and other races that were just in Russia, why not take someone who is closely aligned with the realities of Russia and not the culture of America? . It was especially bitter for me to hear the song 'Holy War' as the theme of one of the series.

What do we have in the end?

Pluses of the series:

+ wonderful picture

+ excellent casting, with the exception of historical inconsistencies

+ sometimes funny jokes

Cons of the series:

- A disgusting image of our distant compatriot

- lack of any morality

- an open call for polygamy and the undermining of moral principles, which in Russia were just not welcomed at that time, and honesty and love only between two persons were important to everyone

- promotion of modern ideas that were not there, Catherine was very conservative

-miscalculations in the installation and selection of some parts that hit the eye of anyone who lives or lived in the post-Soviet space

- a distortion of history, but it is worth noting that they at least warn that only part of what is shown is true

Who should watch? Only those who, like me, are crazy about El Fanning, who are willing to tolerate this interpretation of past events and blows below the waist. If you are indifferent to the history of Russia and you support stereotypes about it.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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Seasons & Episodes

61

Series Overview
Season 1

61
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: October 3, 2019
- tbd
  S1:E4. Episode #1.4
  Air Date: October 24, 2019
- tbd
  S1:E3. Episode #1.3
  Air Date: October 20, 2019
- tbd
  S1:E2. Episode #1.2
  Air Date: October 28, 2019
- tbd
  S1:E1. Episode #1.1
  Air Date: October 3, 2019