I understand actors wanting to develop their own projects, but surely Helen Mirren can do way-better than this slop. Had she made sure the script and casting (sorry HM, but you are WAY-TOO old to play the Notorious CTG) was as top-shelf as the sets and costumes, she would have really had something. Instead, we are treated to "Caligula-Lite", complete with enough F-Bombs to sink the entire Imperial Russian Navy!
Since IMDb is pulling the old Unable to Verify routine on me, below are a few of the reasons why Chatty Cathy had me pulling out my hair:
* Potemkin and Praskovja were never lovers. She not only played Cupid between he and Catherine, she "tested" the men he selected for Catherine as potential favorites. Moreover, it was Potemkin who engineered her downfall.
* Potemkin was never lured into a game of billiards, then pummeled within an inch of his life by two of Catherine's Boy Toys.
* Potemkin lost his left eye in 1762 shortly after Catherine came to the throne, the circumstances of which remain unclear to this day. What is clear is that he didn't lose the eye fighting the Turks.
* While speaking of the Treaty of St. Petersburg, Catherine tells Zavadovsky and Zubov that Frederick the Great called her a Naughty Word. In fact, she asked him for recommendations for a bride for Paul. Would she have sought his advice if she knew he thought she was a Naughty Word?
* Catherine, Potemkin, and other characters speak of Germany as a nation. Germany became a nation in 1871.
* Constantinople was renamed Istanbul in 1923.
* Potemkin yells "Let's get this show on the road!" as he boards Catherine's barge. That phrase was coined circa 1910.
* According to "Catherine the Great and the French Philosophers of the Enlightenment", she did not have a policy which punished her critics, odd for a ruler who prided herself on being an autocrat. Ergo, the hissy fit she throws at court, announcing that "the monster" who slammed her will be tried and (hopefully) executed probably never happened.
* The French Revolution did horrify Catherine, as she saw it as an assault on civilization itself. While she did blame Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau for the uprising, she mostly blamed Louis XVI (whom she had great sympathy for) for "not knowing how to rule" and did not order a burning of books by French writers.
* Catherine's parents were German, yet singles her mother out for derision because she was German? Her relationship with her mother was ambivalent, however, her rise to power was due, in no small part, to Mama. The outburst comes out of absolute nowhere.
* Praskovja lost her position in 1779 when Catherine caught her and a Boy Toy in the act, engineered by Potemkin. Needless to say, Praskovja schmoozing with Potemkin at court, then later chatting with Catherine in the garden never happened.
* By the time Paul came to the throne, he had 8 children, not 2. He was also a man in his 40s, not an overgrown brat in his 20s.
* The account of Catherine's death is pure hooey. She was found on the floor of her study by her chamberlain; her physician diagnosed a stroke. Attempts to revive her failed, and she fell into a coma. Paul and Maria arrived at the Palace that evening (having been notified by Zubov, who traveled to Gatchina), and spent the night at her bedside. Informed that there was no hope of recovery, Paul ordered Bezborodko to sort and seal the papers in the study, under the supervision of Aleksandr and Konstantin; she died that night. The very-idea of a dying Catherine lying on the floor as Paul tears the place apart searching for the paper naming Aleksandr as her heir is unthinkable and twice as ludicrous!
* Paul scoffs at the rumor that Catherine married Potemkin in secret. The actual rumor was that she married Grigory Orlov, with who she had a son, Aleksey. Aleksey nor Catherine's two daughters are even hinted at here.
* The epilogue says Paul was assassinated on Aleksandr's orders. Aleksandr did not punish the assassins, yet there is no proof that he was in on in, much less, had Dear Old Dad offed. Also, the Aleksandr in the miniseries is a child (he was actually 18 when Catherine died): are we really expected to buy that a child ordered his father's murder like some Mini-Mafioso?
Face palm!
Since IMDb is pulling the old Unable to Verify routine on me, below are a few of the reasons why Chatty Cathy had me pulling out my hair:
* Potemkin and Praskovja were never lovers. She not only played Cupid between he and Catherine, she "tested" the men he selected for Catherine as potential favorites. Moreover, it was Potemkin who engineered her downfall.
* Potemkin was never lured into a game of billiards, then pummeled within an inch of his life by two of Catherine's Boy Toys.
* Potemkin lost his left eye in 1762 shortly after Catherine came to the throne, the circumstances of which remain unclear to this day. What is clear is that he didn't lose the eye fighting the Turks.
* While speaking of the Treaty of St. Petersburg, Catherine tells Zavadovsky and Zubov that Frederick the Great called her a Naughty Word. In fact, she asked him for recommendations for a bride for Paul. Would she have sought his advice if she knew he thought she was a Naughty Word?
* Catherine, Potemkin, and other characters speak of Germany as a nation. Germany became a nation in 1871.
* Constantinople was renamed Istanbul in 1923.
* Potemkin yells "Let's get this show on the road!" as he boards Catherine's barge. That phrase was coined circa 1910.
* According to "Catherine the Great and the French Philosophers of the Enlightenment", she did not have a policy which punished her critics, odd for a ruler who prided herself on being an autocrat. Ergo, the hissy fit she throws at court, announcing that "the monster" who slammed her will be tried and (hopefully) executed probably never happened.
* The French Revolution did horrify Catherine, as she saw it as an assault on civilization itself. While she did blame Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau for the uprising, she mostly blamed Louis XVI (whom she had great sympathy for) for "not knowing how to rule" and did not order a burning of books by French writers.
* Catherine's parents were German, yet singles her mother out for derision because she was German? Her relationship with her mother was ambivalent, however, her rise to power was due, in no small part, to Mama. The outburst comes out of absolute nowhere.
* Praskovja lost her position in 1779 when Catherine caught her and a Boy Toy in the act, engineered by Potemkin. Needless to say, Praskovja schmoozing with Potemkin at court, then later chatting with Catherine in the garden never happened.
* By the time Paul came to the throne, he had 8 children, not 2. He was also a man in his 40s, not an overgrown brat in his 20s.
* The account of Catherine's death is pure hooey. She was found on the floor of her study by her chamberlain; her physician diagnosed a stroke. Attempts to revive her failed, and she fell into a coma. Paul and Maria arrived at the Palace that evening (having been notified by Zubov, who traveled to Gatchina), and spent the night at her bedside. Informed that there was no hope of recovery, Paul ordered Bezborodko to sort and seal the papers in the study, under the supervision of Aleksandr and Konstantin; she died that night. The very-idea of a dying Catherine lying on the floor as Paul tears the place apart searching for the paper naming Aleksandr as her heir is unthinkable and twice as ludicrous!
* Paul scoffs at the rumor that Catherine married Potemkin in secret. The actual rumor was that she married Grigory Orlov, with who she had a son, Aleksey. Aleksey nor Catherine's two daughters are even hinted at here.
* The epilogue says Paul was assassinated on Aleksandr's orders. Aleksandr did not punish the assassins, yet there is no proof that he was in on in, much less, had Dear Old Dad offed. Also, the Aleksandr in the miniseries is a child (he was actually 18 when Catherine died): are we really expected to buy that a child ordered his father's murder like some Mini-Mafioso?
Face palm!