Now I am watching THE GREAT, and I have THOUGHTS, and they are most definitely *not* “great.”

1. Catherine was not an empress upon her arrival in Russia; Empress Elizabeth was...for almost 20 years before Catherine’s husband inherited the throne after his aunt’s death (1/?)

2. Catherine was actually named Sophie at birth. She was only renamed Catherine when she took up the Russian Orthodox faith after a long and grueling course of study. Throughout all this, her wedding was up in the air and she was nothing but a lonely girl at court (2/?)

3. Only after this was she able to marry Peter, the Grand Duke at the time, certainly not the Emperor. Peter was a silly boy who kept to his room, where he mostly played with toy soldiers. He was completely at the mercy of his formidable aunt, the real Empress (3/?)

4. Believe it or not, women in Russia COULD read before Catherine’s arrival, particularly noble women, and no, she did not suddenly make them literary or build a school for the ladies of the court, who were all much older than her (4/?)

5. The noble ladies of the court did not bore Catherine with their silly court games and gossip; when she arrived in Russia, she was a naive, young princess of 15 who was bought up to be a royal woman of her time. Her becoming the empress we know literally took decades. (5/?)

6. The setting doesn’t even attempt to recreate Catherine’s world or Russia herself. A bear and a few scenes with snow and a lake does not Russia make. Or Italian palaces that are supposed to be Saint Petersburg but are blatantly not (6/?)

7. I don’t think this needs to be said, but I will say it anyway. No, Catherine did not alight on the idea of stealing her husbands throne or her coup d’etat from a lady in waiting (7/?)

I think that’s it for now. Only one episode in I totally understand this is supposed to be a fictionalized view of Catherine, and I completely support changing historical fact for the sake of the story, but this show is truly ridiculous (8/?)

If you completely suspend belief, you can maybe enjoy this over-the-top romp, but this show has absolutely nothing to do with Catherine the Great or #histfic or Russia. This is why adaparing history/books/etc. from another culture is SO problematic

Oooops typo just as I got to my grand finale - “suspend your disbelief”

Ughh! Another typo *adapting.