Through a chain of comedy events, this series follows a young woman, Catherine, from rural Austria. Catherine finds herself in a hard situation when she has to choose between her personal happiness and the future of Russia when she marries an Emperor.
As with McNamara's justly celebrated screenplay for The Favourite, it's the emotional honesty of The Great that allows the comedy to land so viciously.
Coupled with overly long episode run times, The Great loses steam in the middle. Catherine's triumphant moment of becoming falls victim to too predictable romance.
Reality is rarely as funny as this sparkling period satire, set in mid-18th century Russia amid a sneaky coup d'état that plays out like a Scooby gang caper (with wigs).
"The Great" grows tediously and even torturously long - which may be its cruelest joke of all, as its appreciable style and sass surrender to repetitious rounds of palace intrigue.
There's a singular darkness to The Great that will startle viewers... There are moments of terror and horror, too, and an enthusiastically cavalier approach to historical detail that adds to a sense of heightened reality.
Against all expectations I had for the show (10 hours of Russian history, sans any tonal context, sounds like a miserable slog), it is a total, breezy delight.
Yet in a sense, the same way "Hamilton" put a fresh spin on early American politics, "The Great" helps our understanding of dusty old figures by placing them in an engaging, present day context.
