Opportunities and challenges for female rulers of a vast empire, as rare as they are and were in reality, are part of the series business of the streaming platforms just like the socially relevant drama of disadvantage is part of the public service.
Firmly convinced that politics used to be done between rumpled sheets and not at cabinet tables, the series combine visual opulence with the emotionally gripping, placing the powerful in the field of tension between women's emancipation and reasons of state.
More is more: more drama, more suffering, more determination, more one-woman-goes-her-way, more weakness in men.
In the respectable productions, this ensures a certain broadening of horizons.
"Catherine, the Great" (Sky) with Helen Mirren is an outstanding case, "The Crown" (Netflix) is in places, RTL's "Sisi" from last year also has qualities.
The Austrian-Czech series "Maria Theresia" with Stefanie Reinsperger, shown at Arte, is also more than costume tidbits and schemers at court.
Ministers occasionally walk through the picture
Unlike "The Empress", Netflix's new series of female rulers, announced in a big way, but consistently disappointing.
Excellent actors and actresses hold court in the six episodes of this redesign of the "Sisi" myth.
Above all, Melika Foroutan, who plays the Empress Dowager Archduchess Sophie and who, also because one soon has had enough of the teasing love games of Elisabeth and Franz Joseph, becomes the true, tragic heroine of this Habsburg quarrel arrangement.
Jördis Triebel as Elisabeth von Austria's mother Ludovika in Bavaria and Andreas Döhler as father Max in Bavaria, a few moments of a carriage ride are enough to make the drama of a marriage and the late reconciliation believable.
In this story, in which lesbian love and transgender figures accompany the Spanish court ceremonies, Luziwuzi (here still as a child: Felix Nölle), the youngest brother of the emperor, whose soft spot for robes and men was an open secret, shouldn't be missing either.
Other characters are also well taken.
The problem is different.
This production wants to be so much more than the latest "Sisi" interpretation, but only throws itself at the love affairs and family disputes.
Ministers occasionally walk through the picture, Hungary doesn't exist at all, the only rumblings in the Reich are because of poverty.
"The People" is a collection of decoratively ragged people.
In between, an assassin is smuggled in, disguised as the lady-in-waiting Leontine von Apafri (Almila Bagriacik).
The reference to "MeToo" should not be missing either.
A scene shortly after the arrival of the imperial bride at the Habsburg court is observed in detail, in which the archbishop “checks” Elisabeth's childbearing capacity and virginity with the personal physician.
In the presence of the wedding party, Elisabeth later complains about the two men, accusing them of being amused at their "sacred duty".
It follows - nothing.
You just wanted to say it.
It is said how the beak has grown.
“I want a man who will feed my soul”, Elisabeth has to utter such platitudes, Franz Joseph has to utter similar ones.
Whenever things get erotic, and it often does, there are extreme close-ups of faces and skin (camera: Christopher Aoun, Christian Almesberger, Moritz Schultheiss).
Devrim Lingnau (Elisabeth) and Philip Froissant (Franz Joseph) hit the nuances between fresh and smart.
The screenplays (main author Katharina Eyssen) are tied into an ahistorical, pompous and soapy corset that leaves little acting freedom (directors Katrin Gebbe and Florian Cossen).
A few characters fall out of the grid with satirical exaggeration: Countess Esterhazy, Johann Strauss and Franz Liszt seem like characters from Alice in Wonderland - the Red Queen, the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.
Instead of all the love kitsch and fraternal conflict between Franz Joseph and Maximilian, more grotesque would have been a better option.
The end of this first season of "Kaiserin" offers a cliffhanger that combines kitsch apotheosis and "poverty porn".
"The people" besieged the gate of Schönbrunn Palace at night, ragged, dirty, each holding a burning torch, it looks like "Game of Thrones".
The soldiers stand bayonet at foot.
Until a figure of light with a white cape steps among the lumpen proletariat and bends the knee.
Her magic word "I see you" puts an end to the spook.
“The people” freeze in veneration.
Now the Emperor is also ready to be seen.
Waste of all of our time.
The Empress
starts today on Netflix.