Following its previous attempt at combining drama and documentary with The Roman Empire, Netflix has just released a new show about the Romanov family. The Last Czars tells the story of the family’s tragic undoing and the massacre that followed, taking us deep into the fascinating story of the fall of the Russian Empire. Question, is the show any good?
First, a word on the format
The Last Czars is a “docuseries” consisting of six episodes, produced by Nutopia and distributed by Netflix. A docuseries, as indicated by the name, is basically a highly dramatized depiction of historical events intertwined with documentary-style commentaries and images. So, we get to see, on the one hand, serious actors portraying famous historical characters, and experts or authors talking about them, on the other. Unlike a traditional documentary, which has more commentary than dramatization, a docuseries tends to have more high-quality dramatization than commentaries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wUmTjgxTKE
This format is certainly not for everybody. The commentary can often prevent us from getting into the action, and the dramatized action can likewise get in the way of historical facts. If done right, it could be appealing to both documentary buffs and period-series fans. In this case, unfortunately, I can’t say it has been done right.
Is The Last Czars any good?
As a half-baked hybrid between a dramatic series and a documentary, The Last Czars can’t excel at either and ultimately fails at both—mostly. In this regard, it’s much like Netflix’s The Roman Empire, which neither gives a highly accurate account of the events nor is able to deliver a particularly high-quality dramatization. Both series have this in common: they each need to sacrifice historicity for drama and drama for historicity, and it falls short in both areas as a result. I’m sure this is not an intrinsic issue with the “docuseries” format as such—there’s probably a way to do it right. It’s just that Netflix hasn’t managed to achieve this arguably challenging goal.
On the whole, The Last Czars feels uneven and clumsy, with solid acting here and there weighed down by superficial dialogue and subpar direction. And whenever the show does get some traction on that front, the story is often thwarted by the constant interruptions of awkward commentary.
But that’s not to say The Last Czars isn’t at all enjoyable. On the contrary, at moments it is thoroughly entertaining, and at its worst, it’s still better that many other shows out there. The story of the Romanovs and the fall of the Russian Empire is fascinating, after all, and the show obviously benefits greatly from that fact. Sure, The Last Czars won’t appeal to hardcore documentary enthusiasts or dedicated period-show fans, but it may find a suitable audience in between.
As Netflix delves deeper into this format, I take The Last Czars to be one of the early, unpolished attempts to get the recipe right. Perhaps future attempts will fare better, if they ever come—and it seems they will. In the meantime, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one despite its shortcomings.
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