I rememberd trying to watch this when season 1 came. At the time I was left unimpressed and didn't continue watching after episode 1. I can't recall what made me choose so, but when I finally gave it a second chance, it feels awkward that I would ever think it lacking.
This show has a strong asset in the family, place and time setting it explores. It's even further fortified by the success of other shows that take place in adjacent or even overlapping time periods, better yet, in the very same peninsula.
I'm not a historian, I romantice the history of Europe in a way that probably doesn't make sense if you knew all the gruesome details, and so I can't really say how accurate this show is to what is known. There were so many prominent names from history that most probably recognize and it always feels great to see them portrayed in such a masterful way.
On that note, I think the acting was always great with this show. The script is generally good and there aren't many times where you'd feel bored or uninterested. But there were some. Generally the production is great, so I'll move on to the few gripes I had with the show:
1. The Pazzi arc of season 2 was corny. I don't know if it was intentional or what happened, but everything about the Pazzis across the whole season felt like a caricature. Their home -- dim, spooky and very unwelcoming. The actors they cast were great, but look very "evil" in a very classical way. The way the head of the family was written had me puzzled. I kept waiting for the moment when they finally humanize the character and make it less evil-y, but nope, the show insists on a dynamic that has some clearly evil antagonists. This wasn't the case in season 1. Or season 3 for that matter.
2. The music is great, but at times it felt out of place somehow. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it didn't feel like a mattress upon which the visuals calmly lay and glue things together, it felt somehow that the music tried to overthrow the visuals on some occasions. Some points of the show felt like a music video, though that was probably a conscious stylistic choice at least on the more prominent occasions this happened. Don't get me wrong -- 95% of the time it's fantastic and meshed perfectly with the rest of the show. The remaining 5% was still 5% more than most shows have.
3. Some plot arcs didn't seem to make much sense. I think this is probably about the show having to cut some parts out, which probably left some arcs feeling a bit abrupt or weirdly paced. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't go into detail, but sometimes the show decides to go one way, show an intriguing scene and then just never return there, with one of the following scenes implying whatever happened in there, happened, but without actually showing it to us as viewers. It could be that this was an intentional choice, but it felt a little bit annoying at times.
But I want to emphasis that none of these gripes really hindered the experience to any meaningful level for me. They were enough to make me take notice of them, but not enough to really matter.
The story has some slow moments that make you hungry for something to happen, but then the show usually satiates that hunger very quickly and it isn't a big problem. Then some moments are so powerful that they make you really feel the weight of things, the struggles or the joys.
This was a very good and captivating experience for someone who likes historical shows. I would think most with the same inclination would find it equally captivating.
This show has a strong asset in the family, place and time setting it explores. It's even further fortified by the success of other shows that take place in adjacent or even overlapping time periods, better yet, in the very same peninsula.
I'm not a historian, I romantice the history of Europe in a way that probably doesn't make sense if you knew all the gruesome details, and so I can't really say how accurate this show is to what is known. There were so many prominent names from history that most probably recognize and it always feels great to see them portrayed in such a masterful way.
On that note, I think the acting was always great with this show. The script is generally good and there aren't many times where you'd feel bored or uninterested. But there were some. Generally the production is great, so I'll move on to the few gripes I had with the show:
1. The Pazzi arc of season 2 was corny. I don't know if it was intentional or what happened, but everything about the Pazzis across the whole season felt like a caricature. Their home -- dim, spooky and very unwelcoming. The actors they cast were great, but look very "evil" in a very classical way. The way the head of the family was written had me puzzled. I kept waiting for the moment when they finally humanize the character and make it less evil-y, but nope, the show insists on a dynamic that has some clearly evil antagonists. This wasn't the case in season 1. Or season 3 for that matter.
2. The music is great, but at times it felt out of place somehow. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it didn't feel like a mattress upon which the visuals calmly lay and glue things together, it felt somehow that the music tried to overthrow the visuals on some occasions. Some points of the show felt like a music video, though that was probably a conscious stylistic choice at least on the more prominent occasions this happened. Don't get me wrong -- 95% of the time it's fantastic and meshed perfectly with the rest of the show. The remaining 5% was still 5% more than most shows have.
3. Some plot arcs didn't seem to make much sense. I think this is probably about the show having to cut some parts out, which probably left some arcs feeling a bit abrupt or weirdly paced. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't go into detail, but sometimes the show decides to go one way, show an intriguing scene and then just never return there, with one of the following scenes implying whatever happened in there, happened, but without actually showing it to us as viewers. It could be that this was an intentional choice, but it felt a little bit annoying at times.
But I want to emphasis that none of these gripes really hindered the experience to any meaningful level for me. They were enough to make me take notice of them, but not enough to really matter.
The story has some slow moments that make you hungry for something to happen, but then the show usually satiates that hunger very quickly and it isn't a big problem. Then some moments are so powerful that they make you really feel the weight of things, the struggles or the joys.
This was a very good and captivating experience for someone who likes historical shows. I would think most with the same inclination would find it equally captivating.
