Hulu's Satirical 'The Great' is Bold, Wildly Inaccurate and a Delight to Watch

Hulu's new satirical new series The Great isn't your typical period drama. It's not particularly historically accurate. It's often raunchy, full of profane language, and occasionally quite gruesome. And it's also one of the best things you'll watch this year.

Sure, this story of a young Catherine the Great isn't exactly a paint by numbers recitation of the events in the early years of the iconic empress' life. But it's also a bold, hilarious spin on a genre that's far too often seen as staid and static, and tells a historical story that wrestles with modern questions of leadership, women in power, democracy and how we remember the figures of our own past.

It's a beautifully done series with a stunning cast, and though there are disturbing moments of excess and cruelty, there is also plenty of grace and charm. The constant friction between the reality of life in nineteenth-century Russia and Catherine's desire for a more egalitarian, free-thinking nation is largely what drives the series, as no matter how modern the Empress feels, she too is both a product of and a prisoner in her own time.