Ah Netflix. First, there was Lillehammer, then House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. With more and more Emmy and Globe noms every year, Netflix is really pushing original programming (not to mention saving Arrested Development, too). While they have mostly stayed within modern drama/comedy, their new show, Marco Polo is a period drama centering around, well, you guessed it, the intrepid Italian explorer.
The show is being produced by The Weinstein Company (hello, basically every amazing movie in the last 10 years) and is being codirected by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg — the two directors of the Oscar-nominated film Kon-Tiki.
I'm really curious about this show. I was a big fan of the early seasons of The Tudors (but, then again, I LOVE LOVE Tudor English history), love historical drama in general (Downton!!) and think that Harvey Weinstein is a pretty genius guy. I mean, this is the guy who told Tarantino that he should make Kill Bill into two movies instead of one. In general, the adventures of Marco Polo are pretty interesting (he was the first explorer to China to create detailed accounts of his time there). I'm especially interested to see what a modern eye will do with the chronicles of an European man experiencing Asian life for the first time and his understanding of a foreign culture in the 13th century.
Hopefully, this show will be done well, drawing parallels to modern issues in a smart and sophisticated way, and not be a cheesy historical sex-romp (which is what The Tudors turned into). This miniseries is 9 episodes long, and as with all Netflix shows, they will all probably be released on the same day. Which is great, especially if it's good, because then I can burn through the show and not have to wait week to week!
It's interesting to see Netflix taking more chances with original programming and not just movies and TV shows that have already aired on network television. I'm looking forward to Marco Polo and hoping for more original programming in the next few years.
What do you think of Netflix style of television production and release? Will you watch Marco Polo?
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