Marco Polo
Electrat
Posts: 589
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I am half way through watching this series and altho it was a slow start it is really beginning to pick up the pace.
Reviewers have been quick to compare it to Game of Thrones but the only thing in common is probably the budget which must be enormous (oh, and obviously the boob count). Every penny of it is on screen, it really looks sumptuous. Sadly the script was a little lacking to begin with and it has taken a good 5 episodes to start caring about the characters and relationships. But Khan is great as the corpulent ruler and Lorenzo Richelmy holds his own as Polo.
Reviewers have been quick to compare it to Game of Thrones but the only thing in common is probably the budget which must be enormous (oh, and obviously the boob count). Every penny of it is on screen, it really looks sumptuous. Sadly the script was a little lacking to begin with and it has taken a good 5 episodes to start caring about the characters and relationships. But Khan is great as the corpulent ruler and Lorenzo Richelmy holds his own as Polo.
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I will finish it when I get time.
I watched the last 7 episodes in one sitting
Loved it.
It had a bit of a slow start, but I found that it picked up quickly, and was really interesting. I loved the setting, and it's got some great characters (especially Hundred Eyes).
Great finale to it.
Looking forward to season 2...
That's the advantage of original programs on Netflix - they aren't a slave to actual ratings and can be given time to bed in.
Meanwhile, Wolf Hall received glowing reviews yet I found it extremely boring and only just made it through one episode.
1. The central character of Marco. The actor playing him was absolutely beautiful and seemed fairly competent but I felt that the writers didn't know quite what to do with him a lot of the time. The series was a lot stronger when it was focused on the Mongolian and Chinese dynasties; the stuff with Marco felt fluffy and superfluous in comparison. And it's fairly patronising to assume that Western viewers need a white male protaganist to see this world through. I feel the idea could have worked if only Marco had a little more personality to him. The romance with the Blue Princess was total box ticking and I never once believed in them. It's not that I didn't like Marco as a character, I just felt there was so much more they could have done with him.
2. The female characters were so unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Not one of them (with the exception of Mei Lin) had any real impact on the narrative. Game of Thrones has proved that men will watch a TV series with strong female characters who drive the narrative forward, and the added bonus is that women will also watch and enjoy shows like that. I understand that Marco Polo is more restricted due to it being based on real life events, and women not having the same rights as men at this time and place in history, but there was still an opportunity to show some complex, well developed female characters and they pulled back at every opportunity. That, coupled with the excessive nudity of women (but of course no full frontal male nudity) left a bit of a nasty taste in my mouth.
Both of those issues can easily be fixed in the next series (should they make one, and I hope they do.) What the series DID get right was the beautiful cinematography and attention to detail in depicting this world, and the acting was all fairly strong. The choreography of the fight scenes was also excellent. I feel that the implied direction it's heading in, with Ahmed and Mei Lin working together to bring down the Khan dynasty, looks extremely interesting. It just needs to iron out some of the problematic storytelling issues.