The Great

Complex characters, witty dialogue, a precarious play for power and just the right touches of humor make for riveting television.

Beautifully made and complex, and unflinching when it needs to be, The Great at times feels like a light meal, but then reveals its surprising density. It’s a show that’s easy to underestimate, but promises to be unforgettable.

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.

Reality is rarely as funny as this sparkling period satire. ... Throughout, I sensed Fanning — along with the rest of the cast — savoring McNamara’s brilliant script, with its carefully arranged layers of intention and its divine insults.

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.

Alternately riotous and poignant.

Historically bonkers.

From its title to its tone to its production design and look, “The Great” mirrors “The Favourite” quite a bit. “The Great” is at its, uh, greatest when Fanning and Hoult spark off one another with McNamara’s rat-a-tat-tat dialogue.

McNamara could have drilled down on the parallels to contemporary world leaders, but The Great’s humor and observations are sharper in their timelessness. Like Catherine, The Great succeeds because it knows when to keep some things to itself.

Period pieces can sometimes feel like a lecture, but The Great, elevated by brilliant performances from both of its leads and a bold and genuinely funny script, is far from a bore.

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.

The show may not be historically accurate, but it slices through history like a hot poker, to royalty’s rancid core.

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.

A simple check of Google could tell you how this all turns out but it’s fascinating to see how McNamara bends the narrative to fit the message.

It is a total, breezy delight.

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.

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.

It isn’t quite the perfectly paced masterpiece that movie was; some episodes drag, including a smallpox romp that’s more tiresome than timely. Still, its witty dialogue and lively performances yield a sharp, fun dramedy.

Peter is fond of saying “Huzzah!” to cheer on his own pitiful efforts at governance. By the time you reach The Great‘s end, you’ll likely be saying it yourself, and more confidently than Peter ever does.

“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).

"The Great" is an engaging historical satire that resonates thanks to its vision of courtly debauchery and the tremendous acting by Fanning, Hoult and the rest of the cast.

“The Great” is absolutely worth watching for Hoult alone, and for the scattered moments throughout each episode in which the writing or acting rises to his level.

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.

The Great would have worked well in tart half-hour bites but its hour-long episodes feel a bit much, packed as they are with intrigue, indulgence and sleaze. The tone switches in a second from gleeful farce to unpleasant.

Rumbling underneath its dissonant mix of history and modernity, there are some keen observations about men, women, and power. Often ugly but sometimes hopeful, they are as true now as they ever were.

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.

If only “The Great” were as great as “The Great” seems to think “The Great” is, it’d be pretty great. But this 10-part limited series from Hulu is more tiresome then clever, more sadistically off-putting than wickedly funny, more overwrought than impactful.

It’s very like “The Tudors” in its cruelty, coarse language, vulgarity and sexuality, a bit of “Start the Revolution Without Me” in its royal randiness, funny fops and the like.

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.

“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.

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.