The Empress is your next period drama binge watch
The Germans make great costume dramas – who knew?
Kia ora and welcome back to Rec Room, The Spinoff’s pop culture and entertainment newsletter, brought to you by Panasonic. This week I made a rare trip to the cinema for the Gerard Depardieu detective drama Maigret, was inspired by the Liz Truss omnishambles to rewatch season one of The Thick of It, and listened to more podcasts than is healthy about the situation in Ukraine. Here’s what else I’ve been enjoying, along with a guest rec from my colleague Stewart Sowman-Lund.
- Catherine McGregor
The Empress is your next period drama binge watch
Devrim Lingnau as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in The Empress (Netflix)
What’s the story?
A German Netflix production, The Empress tells the true-ish story of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, a 19th century Habsburg monarch with an Austro-Hungarian empire encompassing most of central Europe. In German culture Elisabeth, or Sisi as she was commonly known, is a renowned historical figure, but non-Teutonic viewers will most likely be going in cold. That’s no problem: apart from a few gnarly geopolitical aspects, the story is easy enough to follow.
The six episodes of season one follow the courtship of Elisabeth and Emperor Franz Joseph and the early months of their marriage at the Imperial palace in Vienna. Elisabeth is headstrong, artistic, empathetic – a poor fit for palace life; her new husband is busy fending off attempts to be drawn into the Crimean War while attempting to modernise his sprawling empire.
What’s good
Much as I love period dramas, I’ve been increasingly turned off by their rabid desperation to appeal to modern viewers (yes Bridgerton, I’m looking at you, though your diverse casting can definitely stay). That’s the first point in The Empress’s favour. While it certainly isn’t slavishly devoted to historical accuracy – more on that in a moment – it retains most of the trappings of a classic costume romp. If The Empress was a Jane Austen adaptation, it’d be the swoony Keira Knightley-starring Pride and Prejudice, not Dakota Johnson’s controversial, fourth-wall-breaking Persuasion.
Pride and Prejudice, in fact, seems to have been something of an inspiration for The Empress, at least in episode one. There’s a pushy mother, a pretty but dull older sister, a rakish young man who can’t be trusted, and, at the heart of the story, Elisabeth, the family black sheep. She loves solitude, nature and poetry, and has no intention of marrying at all. Until, of course, she has a meet-cute with the Emperor in the garden.
If it sounds predictable, well, in many ways it is. But The Empress is also full of surprises. Chief among them is Elisabeth herself, played by the wonderful Devrim Lingnau with humour, intelligence and earthy sensuality. The surprises come also in the many fleeting moments of weirdness that keep the story a little off-kilter. In what other mainstream costume drama would you see a lady-in-waiting clean her queen’s teeth with her finger, or the heroine of the show hock an enormous loogie as an expression of unbridled joy?
Eliza Schlott as Helene and Devrim Lingnau as Elisabeth in The Empress (Netflix)
Almost as importantly, The Empress looks incredible. Forget CGI dragons: this is the show that made me consider springing for a properly big TV. From the costumes to the locations – all real German palaces – to the breathtaking cinematography, it’s television to luxuriate in.
The not-so-good
I know I said The Empress was a relatively trad sort of costume drama. But it also boasts a hairstyling choice so bonkers it makes me furious every time I think of it. Remember that blonde bob wig Julia Roberts sports in Pretty Woman? A main character in The Empress has that exact haircut… in the year 1854. Not even Bridgerton would dare.
The verdict
A beautifully shot, smartly written dark fairytale, with enough sex and silliness to appeal to a wide Netflix audience.
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Podcast rec: Project Unabom
Recently I’ve been engrossed in this Apple Original podcast about the decades-long hunt for the domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Unabomber. It traces both Kaczynski’s descent into violence and how law enforcement repeatedly blew chances to apprehend him, before being handed a remarkably lucky break.
The surprising thing about Project Unabom is how moving it often is. That's due to the participation and insight of Ted's younger brother David, who tried for years to keep a connection with Ted as he grew increasingly unhinged. Famously, David was the one who ultimately turned Ted in, and it’s a decision that has weighed heavily on him through the years.
The story of Ted, David and their long-suffering parents is uniquely tragic, but it's one that could well resonate with listeners with a family member struggling with mental illness or self-destructive tendencies. It's also just a really gripping true crime story.
Comedy rec: Reboot
Keegan Michael-Key, Johnny Knoxville, Judy Greer and Calum Worthy in Reboot (Disney+)
While some, including The Spinoff’s own Sam Brooks, may be hungry for even longer form telly, the 25-minute sitcom remains a near perfect format – and Hulu’s Reboot (available here on Disney+) is a solid example of this. Starring a weird(ly great) ensemble including Keegan-Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville and Judy Greer, the show follows the cast of an early 2000s sitcom that are forced back together when it gets rebooted two decades later. It’s reminiscent of (though not as good as) Episodes, which starred Matt LeBlanc, in the sense that much of its comedy is derived from the meta-ness of the TV show within a TV show world. Maybe it’s just because I’m a bit of a TV nerd, but I love that kind of stuff. It’s not going to change the comedy world, but Reboot generates an easy laugh.
- Stewart Sowman-Lund
Drama rec: Friend of the Family
Last week I wrote about the multiple successes of true crime documentary maker Skye Borgman (Sins of Our Mother). Now the story covered by her best known series, Abducted in Plain Sight, has been dramatised as Friend of the Family. The nine-part miniseries tells how, in the mid-1970s, master manipulator and predator Bob Berchtold preyed on multiple members of a single family, including daughter Jan. It sounds grim, and it’s not always an easy watch. But the series, starring Anna Paquin, Jake Lacey and Colin Hanks, avoids feeling exploitative thanks to expert filmmaking and the full involvement of the now-adult Jan Broberg, who even appears on camera to introduce episode one. The first four episodes are streaming on TVNZ+ now.
Random links
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