WiC Watches: Catherine the Great

Catherine the Great: Episode Three

RECAP

Catherine and Count Potemkin plot to take the Crimea, but Minister Panin and Grigory Orlov worry about how the other European nations would react to further Russian expansion. The mercurial Potemkin is bored and thirsts for war and adventure, but Catherine doesn’t want him to leave. Prince Paul’s wife, Princess Natalia, is pregnant, but Paul’s best friend Count Razumovsky (Phil Dunster) is likely the true father. Natalia dies in childbirth and the baby does not survive.

Catherine and Potemkin feels lost in their tempestuous relationship. Catherine and Paul mourn the loss of his unborn son. Catherine decides to try to take the Crimea without attacking it, and sends Potemkin to negotiate with the Tatars. Paul falls into depression and Catherine tries to help him recover, choosing to expose her affair with Razumovsky. The lonely Catherine begins an affair with her handsome secretary, Peter Zavadosky (Thomas Doherty).

Time passes, and Potemkin is successful in convincing the Tatar warlords to swear allegiance to Catherine. Paul remarries and has a son, Prince Alexander. Having founded the seaport city of Sevastopol, Potemkin returns to a hero’s welcome and replaces Peter in Catherine’s bed. Catherine removes a stunned Alexi Orlov as her Minister of War and replaces him with Potemkin; she also forces the disloyal Panin to resign and sends Paul away to the Austrian court. Potemkin works to secure the Crimea, and then escorts Catherine to see the new territory and the naval fleet.

REVIEW

I had been hoping this show would eventually dig into something of real substance, that it might surprise us with a sudden eruption of dark intrigue to contrast with its glowing color palate. But alas, for all its sumptuous pageantry and theatricality, Catherine the Great prefers to float like a skipping stone across the great pond of Russian history. The HBO series is content to play in the emotional shallows rather than plunge into the monumental tides of war and peace and the interior complexities of aristocrats who once commanded a large portion of the civilized world.

Mirren and Clarke are quite enjoyable in their roles, but the script never allows them to get past a rather adolescent relationship plagued by egos and silly parlor games. Despite acting to remove a few obvious opponents in this episode, Mirren’s Catherine seems much more concerned with soapy love affairs and sexual gratification than the intricacies of conflict and diplomacy required to fuel her nation’s expansion. The triumph of the Russian Empire in Catherine the Great seems to be happening in spite of, rather than because of, Catherine herself, and that is rather disappointing.