Ekaterina

Season 1. This might better be called "Elizaveta" as it focusses more on the reign of the daughter of Pyotr the Great as Empress of all the Russias. Yuliya Aug ably portrays this shrewd and calculating woman who has realised that her nephew and heir Pyotr (Aleksandr Yatsenko) isn't quite the full shilling, but nevertheless must succeed her if the Romanov dynasty is to continue. To that end she picks a princess from a small German principality to marry the man and so enter the timid Princess Sophia (Marina Aleksandrova). She arrives with her mother (Isabel Schosnig) and is soon getting used to a deferential court rife with machinations and schemes whilst learning to appreciate that her potential marriage to a man at best indifferent to her is going to present challenges. With the Empress becoming more and more frustrated that a pregnancy isn't manifesting, the first series depicts the precarious existence of the now Grand Duchess Ekaterina as she learns to tread adeptly on the eggshells around her. Her increasing desparation to avoid the vengeance of Elizaveta and a life in a remote Siberian convent sees her develop skills of ingenuity that, with the tacit complicity of the Empress, see her turn to the dashing Prince Saltykov (Rinal Mukhametov) and next thing there's a Prince called Pavel and a Grand Duke called Pyotr taking the plaudits for something in which he most definitely didn't have an hand. The Empress has all she wants and so the rest of the series sees out her reign and the start of that of the new Czar Pyotr III who has his new mistress Elizaveta Vorontosva (Anastasia Korolokova) in tow and wishes to be shot of his now inconvenient Empress. It's all history this, so little room for jeopardy. What it does provide us with is a sumptuously staged drama depicting a speculative glimpse of life at a Russian Imperial court where life firmly revolved around the person of the Empress. The characterisations are solid with a strong performance from an Aleksandrova (...