Netflix's new epic drama - 'Marco Polo'

[Wmarshal]

as long as it isn't like Da Vinci's demons - I'd like it tobe at least loosely based on real events

I am okay so long as it is nothing like "reign".

[Fez]

I'm looking forward to giving this a shot.

[Zorral]

Woo -- the promo budget Netflix is spending on Marco Polo is deep and wide. They are employing their video trailers wherever feasible, A building on the corner of my neighborhood, the former Hilfiger flagship store -- the front windows of the sidewalk floor are covered top to bottom -- and they are high -- with ads for the series. Interspersed among them are video screens showing the trailers. They can't do videos on the subway platforms or cars, but posters are there, as they are inside the more polished stations. There are video screens on some of the bus stops, and Netflix's Marco Polo is using them.

Not to mention billboards and posters all over.

Banner ads on and in the digital and paper editions of the daily papers and magazines.

Netflix wants the world to know Marco is coming this weekend.

[Veltigar]

I really have high hopes for this. I hope this will be everything GoT is not. Exotic locals and exciting action paired with excellent writing.

[Fez]

Grantland's Andy Greenwald, whom I often agree with and has always given genre TV a fair shot, has a scathing review. The first half is more talking about Netflix's business model and why they created the show, but once his review gets going, well, its bad.

If you’re getting the feeling that bankrolling Marco Polo is as much a commercial decision as a creative one, give yourself three satchels of myrrh. Filmed in Italy, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia, with a cast of hundreds, the 10 episodes of Marco make up what is reportedly the most expensive season of television not to feature three-eyed ravens. The show’s wide-ranging setting is an eager nod to Netflix’s global designs, its paint-by-numbers plot a shrugging admission of the limitations of closed captioning. Full of blood and breasts, and generally devoid of brains, Marco Polo is the sort of project designed to appeal to the largest possible audience, which is probably why I can’t for the life of me imagine it appealing to anyone. The series is a sloppy, clattering mess, intended to draw international attention, not plaudits. The yawning intricacies of international taxation and trade are the perfect subject matter for a spectacle this cynical.

Marco himself is played by the young Italian actor Lorenzo Richelmy, who was apparently plucked from obscurity at the eleventh hour. (After a fruitless global search, Richelmy’s tape was finally noticed by the wife of showrunner John Fusco.) Judging from his performance, he wasn’t plucked hard enough. Dwarfed by the scale and scope of the production, Richelmy appears to be either intimidated, jet-lagged, or both. It’s as if he got into the wrong Town Car at the Kuala Lumpur airport and found himself on horseback instead of at the Holiday Inn. That said, I can’t blame him for being disoriented. The pilot is a herky-jerky affair, loping clumsily from flashbacks (detailing Marco’s dreamy youth in Venice before he stowed away with his dubious explorer father) to the show’s present, in which Marco is enslaved to the wily Kublai Khan. As played by British actor Benedict Wong, the khan is a gruff, uninspiring figure — though I’ll admit it’s hard to seem regal when forced to say things like “I hear from my Minister of Falconry that you’ve taken well to the hawks.” The relationship between the two, which is apparently supposed to fuel the series, is part Darth/Luke, part Tony/Christopher, and part Mr. Winslow/Urkel. The khan is continually impressed by the mind of his young charge, even as Marco’s steep learning curve had me wondering how one says “Did I do that?” in Mongol.

Not content to dust off hoary clichés by the fistful — there’s a blind kung fu master (Tom Wu) tasked with teaching Marco how to fight; there’s an oft-nude courtesan (Olivia Cheng) muttering nonsense about “danger games” — creator Fusco (Young Guns II) has taken to stacking them atop one another like mah-jongg tiles. In the second episode, that nude courtesan reveals that she, too, knows kung fu (what are the odds?!) and doesn’t need pants to prove it. The fact that English is a second language for much of the cast isn’t a problem; the resulting potpourri of accents and acting styles is actually fascinating to watch. It’s far more worrisome that familiarity with English doesn’t appear to be a priority for the writing staff, either.

I have Netflix, so I'll still give it a shot. But consider my hype severely curtailed.

[Mexal]

I never agree with Greenwald. I'll read later.

[Mark Antony]

Greenwald is a fucking douche :D

Remember he shat on the True Detective pilot and his opinions on Boardwalk always pissed me off :)

[Fez]

He hated I think the entire season of true detective, not just the pilot. So yeah, I definitely disagreed with him on that. I generally respect his opinions as a critic though.

[sj4iy]

Greenwald is a fucking douche :D

Remember he shat on the True Detective pilot and his opinions on Boardwalk always pissed me off :)

I didn't much care for True Detective, myself. I struggled to watch 6 episodes and finally just stopped after it became clear that I hated both of the protagonists so much that I didn't give a shit what they did.

I don't have Netflix, but I am somewhat interested in this. However, I will wait to see what the wider reaction is.

[Zorral]

I get the impression this fellow didn't care for poor Marco .... :)

Maybe it's like the Netflix's funded third season of the Fontana Borgia. I actually like it, slow as it gets sometimes. It also contains more history than does the Showtime The Borgias -- plus the women in the series have a lot to do beyond being sexual objects. And lots of ways of pronouncing English, with their international cast too. I dunno, but I surely am giving Marco Polo a chance. I probably won't binge watch, any more than I binge watch Borgia. Don't have enough time, but it's so comforting to know it's there any time I have the time and want to!

OTOH -- with being such a success out of the box with both House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, they sure have a lot riding on Marco, and it's hard to do hit homers every time, yet they have a lot to live up to. AND amazilla prime is doing everything it can to cut them out of the game, plus there are all the others who have sprung up. Lots of challenges for Netflix as the game changed, for which they themselves were so responsible for doing.

[sj4iy]

Well, I've read 4 different reviews (including Forbes and Variety), and all of them say the same thing...that this falls woefully short of what it could have been :(

Disappointing to say the least.

[Dr. Pepper]

Has anyone started watching? I played the first episode and couldn't get into it, though it may have just been the time of day.

[Fat Mac]

I watched the first episode. Eh.

The scale of the project is to be admired. You can clearly tell they spent a lot of money to make it. But the acting is nothing impressive.

[sj4iy]

http://qz.com/311617/netflixs-attempt-to-clone-game-of-thrones-is-getting-really-bad-reviews/

[Castel]

I get the impression this fellow didn't care for poor Marco .... :)

Maybe it's like the Netflix's funded third season of the Fontana Borgia. I actually like it, slow as it gets sometimes. It also contains more history than does the Showtime The Borgias -- plus the women in the series have a lot to do beyond being sexual objects. And lots of ways of pronouncing English, with their international cast too. I dunno, but I surely am giving Marco Polo a chance. I probably won't binge watch, any more than I binge watch Borgia. Don't have enough time, but it's so comforting to know it's there any time I have the time and want to!

OTOH -- with being such a success out of the box with both House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, they sure have a lot riding on Marco, and it's hard to do hit homers every time, yet they have a lot to live up to. AND amazilla prime is doing everything it can to cut them out of the game, plus there are all the others who have sprung up. Lots of challenges for Netflix as the game changed, for which they themselves were so responsible for doing.

It's not the same. Borgia is far, far better.

I've watched five episodes and Greenwald's critiques would match mine. It's just so...there.Nothing really grabs you. The naked kung fu and the blind sifu just had me rolling my eyes. Really? Some of the other decisions haven't borne fruit yet but they seem equally uninspired:

(spoilers for episode three):

Setting up a foreign princess "way out of your league" as a love interest for Polo, I really hope this goes a different way and luckily they're hinting at that

And the rest of the plot simply wasn't interesting enough to make up for it, and that's before it went off on a slight tangent that emphasized an uninteresting (to me) plot over the Khan and his issues, where he might actually be interesting. His relationship with Polo certainly isn't deep enough to carry the show.

Not a great show. A real shame,could have been interesting to see a show set in that time period and geographical location succeed.

And,a message to journalists: can we stop calling this a GoT clone? You know there were shows about people in the past preceding GoT right? What does this have in common with GoT thematically that can't be tied to the other historical Showtime shows? I know they're talking as much about the business model as anything but it's just...irksome.

[Zorral]

And,a message to journalists: can we stop calling this a GoT clone? You know there were shows about people in the past preceding GoT right? What does this have in common with GoT thematically that can't be tied to the other historical Showtime shows? I know they're talking as much about the business model as anything but it's just...irksome.

:agree: :agree: :agree:

Unoriginal lemmings!

The caption for the NY Times review of Marco was rather cool, one might think:

OK THE WOMEN CAN KILL BUT THEY HAVE TO BE NUDE

‘Marco Polo,’ Fur-and-Armor Drama From Netflix

I just got home from working the AM in the museum until noon, afternoon working at the grad center, and then a meeting. It's cold. It must be time for wine. I am all sad, since everyone agrees, deeming Marco not worth the watching. Guess I'll have to go out for some music or something. :cheers:

[sj4iy]

And,a message to journalists: can we stop calling this a GoT clone? You know there were shows about people in the past preceding GoT right? What does this have in common with GoT thematically that can't be tied to the other historical Showtime shows? I know they're talking as much about the business model as anything but it's just...irksome.

I agree with this. Recently it was "Outlander" (which is nothing like GoT) and now this (which is also nothing like GoT). Not ever historical drama or period piece is like GoT.

[Zorral]

Also Vikings is not like Got, but They Say so anyway.

:fencing:

Enough.

[Fat Mac]

Historical fiction is different than fantasy. It's odd they're lumped in together. Maybe it's the swords?

[Shryke]

And,a message to journalists: can we stop calling this a GoT clone? You know there were shows about people in the past preceding GoT right? What does this have in common with GoT thematically that can't be tied to the other historical Showtime shows? I know they're talking as much about the business model as anything but it's just...irksome.

But they are correct in that he goal is, at least in part, to tap in to some of that sweet GoT money.