Sisi: Austrian Empress

I have to say I enjoyed the first episode quite a lot and was disappointed when the series began to lose its way in the labyrinth of ill-fitting desiner clothes, mediocre rock music, sloppy plot twists and completely improper comedy. A few drone shots of Vienna don't give the series any Viennese flavour, which instead feels kinda very post-Soviet. It struggles between being authentic and modernized, probably to attract a 21st century young adult viewer, and in doing so tends to lose its way. Moments of beautiful camerawork save induvidual scenes but are not enough to cover the somewhat empty narrative and the moments that reak of anachronisms. It almost feels as if there were two competing units at work - one that strives to make a downtonabbeyesque detailed trip into the history, and another that strives to make a rock opera in the vein of The Phantom that really doesn't give a damn about historical etiquette, accuracy or plausability of the events. Many overly dramatic but emotionally empty and disconnected scenes bear witness of an insecure and disfunctional team of writers and script doctors.

Often a nice fairy tale and a handsomely mounted tale, if you can look past the very preposterous twists, Franz Josef's waxed bodybuilder boobs and the endless array of haute couture dresses with zippers. And no, they didn't eat breakfast, ride or roll in the hay always in glittering, much-revealing, sex-oozing evening gowns.