Catherine The Great

There’s something hot, heady, and transporting about this fantasy of shared rule—a world full of treasures ready for the taking, a woman in charge, and a man who adores her without hesitation. ... Catherine the Great reframes her desire as part of her glory—and revels in that glory, without asking too many awkward questions

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.

The peccadilloes of royalty never go out of fashion, but Catherine -- with her tumultuous decades-long reign -- brings more intrigue to the party than most. Couple that with Mirren's presence, and "Catherine the Great" pretty well lives up to its name.

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.

Nothing is subtle about it: not the acting, not the directing by Philip Martin, not the production design, not the costumes. It’s full-tilt scenery-chewing glamour in every frame of every scene. ... And, for the most part, it works. Mirren is in full DAME HELEN MIRREN mode, regal and saucy and steely by turn.

Mirren is great here. ... Catherine the Great falls into every trap that awaits a biographical miniseries cramming decades of the complex life of a ruler into a handful of hours. ... The best parts of the show are about the ways that her power enriches her love, and vice versa.

Catherine’s lack of change, along with her consistent ability to outmaneuver her political opponents, robs the series of momentum despite the astonishing range of Mirren and Clarke’s performances. No threat to Catherine’s reign is ever serious, no geopolitical conflict ever out of her or Potemkin’s control. Conspiracies and wars serve merely to punctuate the show’s development of the romance at its core. That love story, however, doesn’t evolve much either.

The parts are all good – the scenery, the performances, the script – but they add up to slightly less than their sum. Perhaps it is the extra exposition that makes it feel too ponderous and prevents it from taking flight.

In short, there's a zesty story to be told here. But it mostly isn't in this miniseries.

Even if you can get over the historical inaccuracies, the show still falls kind of flat. I wanted to love it, but I just couldn’t get into it.

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.

You can feel that director Philip Martin and screenwriter Nigel Williams are relying on the mighty Dame Helen to do most of the dramatic heavy lifting here. You can also sense when, despite her best efforts, that particular plan of action still falls short.

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,

“Catherine the Great” is a handsome and competent production that luxuriates in every regal Russian set it gets (albeit with an occasionally distracting green screen for more elaborate outdoor scenes). Mirren is as good as aforementioned, and Gina McKee especially pops as the Countess Praskovya Bruce. ... And yet: stepping back from the series’ four episodes reveals a disappointing lack of ambition in portraying such a titanic force’s final days.

Mirren will get an Emmy nod for this because she's Mirren. She is a great actress, and she's certainly good here. A pity she'll get that nod for so cramped a story.

Mirren is in full command of the role. ... But the script is nowhere near as commanding as her portrayal of Catherine. ... Our fascination with the story, though, comes and goes, even with Mirren consistently rising above and transcending the inconsistent writing.