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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
40
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
May 5, 2023
Season 3 Review:
Despite its flaws, The Great Season 3 is darker and emotionally richer than much of what has come before. It’s still loud and bombastic, full of ridiculous Russian traditions and sly anachronistic jokes. But it’s also sadder and more complicated, with a keener understanding of its own sharp edges.
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The Daily BeastMay 5, 2023
Season 3 Review:
The Great hurtles along at a confidently zany pace, its attitude as finely honed as is its perspective on these alternately reprehensible and admirable individuals. ... Considering how sharp and delirious McNamara’s gem remains, one certainly hopes it’s the latter [a fresh start].
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Nov 23, 2021RogerEbert.comNov 19, 2021
Season 2 Review:
"The Great" remains one of the smartest shows on TV, one of the few programs that can thrill with a clever turn of phrase or unexpectedly rich conversation. It’s just a joy to live in the world of a show with characters who are this richly drawn, spitting such smart dialogue around the room.
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May 18, 2020
Season 1 Review:
McNamara's scripts soar with effervescent humor and cleverness that Fanning amplifies with a sense of dignified, wry nonchalance. Fox is a swift partner at her side as Marial, while Hoult, who also appears in "The Favourite," manages to make Peter enjoyable despite his misdeeds. ... Ornate sets, beautiful lighting and impressive cinematography make "The Great" easy to take in, but its raucous energy, and the message at its center, certify it as a sweet binge that nourishes nevertheless.
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RogerEbert.comMay 13, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The important thing, of course, is that it feels real. As with McNamara’s justly celebrated screenplay for “The Favourite,” it’s the emotional honesty of “The Great” that allows the comedy to land so viciously. Like that lauded cast, this one maintains that precarious balance with apparent ease.
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May 26, 2020
May 9, 2023
Season 3 Review:
While the show is still primarily a triumphant and intense joyride, the 10 hourlong episodes do run the risk of being repetitive. Some storylines spin in exasperating circles. ... Fanning’s daring performance in the season finale is a stellar goodbye encapsulating why McNamara’s series works. It’s unhinged, potent, and charismatic while being laugh-out-loud funny.
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Nov 17, 2021
Season 2 Review:
There’s excess, excess everywhere, and it’s incredible that something so flowery and deliberately overwrought could also feel almost fragile. ... But it’s also grown more confident in its diversions, and as the show’s Catherine and Peter veer further from their historical analogs, they become more themselves.
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The TimesJan 4, 2021
Season 1 Review:
Obviously, this is a comedy so let's hope people keep a sense of humour and don't start drearily demanding that the audience should be warned that there may be historical inaccuracies as they did with The Crown. It's light-hearted and funny and right now that's no bad thing.
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May 19, 2020
Season 1 Review:
That durable comedic setup, the Battle of the Sexes—entitled, boorish Peter versus intelligent, hardworking Catherine—is at the heart of The Great. But there’s another kind of historical comedy here. Catherine is the new, struggling to be born; Peter is the old, fighting against change. The problem of emergent modernity has never been so funny.
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May 14, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Juggling wit, depravity and political intrigue is not easy, and “The Great” doesn’t always succeed at it. ... For all its royal silliness, and a sometimes appalling affrontery, “The Great” is redeemed at the end of its 10-episode season (a second has yet to be announced) by a dose of realpolitik that few will see coming.
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May 13, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Aside from the issues of its length, though, The Great pulls off the trick of its own internal contradictions. It is fun, somehow, which is extra impressive amid so much torture and death and critique of aristocratic privilege. ... The show’s Catherine the Great may not have much at all to do with the real woman, but she and Emperor Peter come alive anyhow. They’re true to The Great’s vision of them, even though the details are all made up.
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May 8, 2020
Season 1 Review:
“The Great” straddles the line between period drama and slapstick comedy with acrobatic ease. ... The cast is uniformly strong, and the series’ brisk and deliberate pacing makes sure to let each central actor show it (and luxuriate in McNamara’s uniquely spiky dialogue, besides).
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May 13, 2020
Season 1 Review:
In the end, The Great never quite lives up to its name. Unable to rise above its growing pains and find a true sense of identity, the series comes off as a smarmy attempt to pass off a ribald, diluted take on the Dickinsons, Tudors, Downton Abbeys, and Favourites of the world.
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The TelegraphJul 27, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Hoult is very funny at portraying these things at once, although – rather like a toddler – his behaviour can become wearing. Writer Tony McNamara falls back on sexual references and swearing a bit too often. Catherine’s character, though, is a bit of a void. Fanning looks very lovely in a succession of fabulous costumes, but it’s hard to discern what is going on inside her head.
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The GuardianMay 13, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The squirm-inducing stunts of torture and vomit work in bursts, in a feature or perhaps half-hour chapters, but there’s only so much garish, ghastly flouting of the rules the point requires and the show’s brand of ruthless absurdity strains under 10 hour-long episodes; halfway in, I found myself wishing for a reprieve. Still, The Great maintains The Favourite’s bleak assessment of human motivation and capacity for meaninglessness in the name of keeping up appearances.
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May 14, 2020
May 1, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Eventually, even the shocks of courtly excess — The Great's raison d'être — make way for a more conventional tale of royal intrigue. The former are amusing but exhausting; the latter, disappointingly orthodox. Despite stellar performances by Fanning and Hoult, The Great, by sticking a pure-hearted heroine in a world where heroism seems impossible, never quite adds up to a coherent whole. As an acidic confection, it's a lemon tart topped with moose lips.
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IndieWireJun 12, 2020
Season 1 Review:
“The Great” doesn’t exactly live up to the title. Fanning and crew work wonders, but it’s unclear who this series is aimed at. It’s too raunchy for teen fans (the “Dickinson” crowd) and yet too low-brow for those who consume “Downton Abbey.” And if you enjoyed “The Favourite” this feels like a watered-down distillation of what made that movie work so perfectly.
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May 14, 2020
Season 1 Review:
While its 10 episodes pop along and then fizzle out, a bigger problem presents itself, as “The Great” grows tediously and even torturously long — which may be its cruelest joke of all, as its appreciable style and sass surrender to repetitious rounds of palace intrigue.
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