EPIC SHOWS AUTUMN 2021
CZARINA ELIZABETH
Although we've seen her in both of the recent series on Catherine the Great, her mother in law empress ELIZABETH is getting her own historical saga on Russia 1 this Autumn! Yuliya Hlinina plays Empress Elizabeth,
daughter of Peter I, who was only sixteen when her father left her in control of a huge empire. For Elizabeth, the throne became a curse: against her will, the girl finds herself drawn into a whirlpool of palace intrigues, where she is opposed by influential courtiers!
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| Elizabeth will be a new Russian series on the famous czarina |
AUSTRIAN EMPRESS SISI
She won't be the only empress getting a series as German TVNow will air new six part saga SISI, probably for Holidays. It follows the extraordinary life of empress Elisabeth of Austria (Dominique Devenport). Told from the
perspective of her closest confidants, the 19th century set series takes a new look at the empress' life and reveals a multi-layered woman. Jannik Schumann is emperor Franz.
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| Sisi will probably air for Holidays on ORF in Austria |
ISAAC ASIMOV'S FOUNDATION
The only intergalactic sf epic action series we will get this season is FOUNDATION which will arrive to Apple TV September 24th in ten episodes. Starring Lee Pace, Jared Harris and Daniel MacPherson, this
small screen adaptation of Asimov's cult series is a complex saga of humans scattered on planets throughout the galaxy all living under the rule of the Galactic Empire.
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| Foundation starts at the end of the month at Apple TV Plus |
RIDLEY ROAD AT BBC
BBC is secretive about their programme as usual, but I did spy with my little eye that their new series RIDLEY ROAD might be arriving this October. Starring our dear Tom Varey, the four-part series blends 60s
period romance with darker, more socially conscious intrigue in the story of a young Jewish hairdresser (Agnes O'Casey) who arrives wide-eyed in London and becomes caught up in the anti-fascist movement of the city’s East End!
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| Tom Varey takes the male lead in Ridley Road |
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
BBC will also present us with their new version of Jules Verne's AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, probably around Christmas. The series will premiere at Canneseries in October! The eight part drama follows David Tennant as Phileas Fogg and his newly employed French valet
Passepartout as they attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days as part of an outrageous bet. Along the way they’re joined by an aspiring journalist, Abigail Fix, who seizes the opportunity to report on the legendary journey. Production finished in March.
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| The series will probably be a holiday series for BBC |
VIKINGS VALHALLA SPINOFF
Netflix still has this one set for 2021 although they might postpone it as they have Witcher in December. Or it might arrive in November? VALHALLA did finish post production last month and they've apparently started production on season 2! Starring our boos David Oakes, Leo Suter
and Sam Corlett, it is set 100 years after the original series ends and chronicles the exploits of the most famous Vikings of all time – Leif Erikson, Freydis, Harald Harada, and Norman King William the Conqueror! Michael Hirst is producing.
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| David Oake in the first photo from the sets! |
RUSSIAN PRISONER
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| The Prisoner will be a 12 episode saga |
NEW GOLD MOUNTAIN
Is coming to us from Australian SBS October 13th and I already showed you the trailer. Starring our handsome boy Yoson An, four part series NEW GOLD MOUNTAIN is set in 1857, where the charismatic headman of the
Chinese mining camp struggles to maintain the fragile harmony between Chinese and European diggers when a murdered European woman is discovered to have links to the Chinese community.
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| New Gold Mountain will be coming to us from Australia |
THE GILDED AGE AT HBO
This one also might be pushed again, but the ten episode HBO series THE GILDED AGE from Julian Fellowes did finish production. Starring Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Blake Ritson, Harry
Richardson, Thomas Cocquerel, Nathan Lane and many others, it will follow a number of rich families during the Gilded Age, the boom years of 1880s New York City.
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| Gilded Age might arrive this year to HBO |
LAND OF LEGENDS SERIES
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| Land of Legends will also be a film |
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| Grand Prince Mikhail is the lead character in the series |
THE WHEEL OF TIME
The only epic fantasy series we are getting this year will arrive to Amazon November 19th! Set in a high fantasy world where magic exists, but only some can access it, eight part THE WHEEL OF TIME will see Rosamund Pike
playing a woman named Moiraine who crosses paths with five young men and women. This sparks a dangerous, world-spanning journey. Based on the book series by Robert Jordan. See trailer here.
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| Rosamund Pike leads the cast of Wheel of Time series |
PARAMOUNT TV'S 1883 SERIES
Although it is still in production Paramount TV has announced December 19th as the starting date of their new 1883 historical ten part series which will be a prequel to their Yellowstone drama. Starring Tim McGraw,
Faith Hill, this Taylor Sheridan produced series follows the Dutton family on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America.
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| 1883 is a Yellowstone prequel series at Paramount TV |
SERIES THAT MIGHT ALSO ARRIVE
There
are a few series that according to my knowledge have finished shooting
but I'm not sure if they will arrive till the end of year: Keeley
Hawes'
THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS at Sky, Emily Blunt's THE ENGLISH Western at BBC
and also their SAS: ROGUE HEROES with Jack O'Connell.
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| First pic of Keeley in Midwich Cuckoos series |
CATHEDRAL & PETER THE GREAT
Russian television is ready to start airing 16 part historical saga THE CATHEDRAL this Autumn! The story is set in the year 1700, the time of dramatic changes in the Russian Empire, the time of reformations carried out
by Peter the Great. Sergey Marin plays young serf Ivan Starshov is head over heels in love with Maria, the daughter of his master. He doesn't want to accept that the young princess is no match for him and prove his love he will even dedicate her a cathedral in the imperial capital.
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| The Cathedral will air on Russian National Broadcaster |
THE HOTEL SACHER
This two season historical series aired on German ZDF and Austrian ORF four years ago, but it is airing from September 10, on the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel and the Walter Presents digital channels. Set in the city of Vienna around 1900, it tells the story of Anna Sacher (Ursula
Strauss), the widow of Eduard Sacher, who was the founder and owner of the Hotel Sacher, and the son of Franz Sacher, inventor of the famous Sachertorte. The story begins with Eduard’s death and Anna’s tough decision to take over the management of the Hotel.
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| Hotel Sacher aired in two season in Germany and Austria |
I've been thinking about watching Vikings since people have been enjoying it.
ReplyDeleteI quit after the second episode when I was they will try to make them glamorous and heroic even though the series opens with them raping, burning and pillaging a village in England. They were the medieval Nazis and should be portrayed as such.
DeleteI would probably watch RIDLEY ROAD and the one with Keeley. We just finished 'follow the money'..it was quite good.
ReplyDeleteYou don't like them too old, which is totally opposite of me LOL I don't know what Follow the Money is, will investigate.
DeleteSuch an impressive list! Historical and FOUNDATION, soooooooo promising!
ReplyDeleteAnd nothing, sadly, from France :( other than Germinal that is already streaming on Salto but nobody is torrenting it :(
DeleteWoow "Around the world in 80 days - Jules Verne". I watch it again and again.
ReplyDeleteWe do love Verne's books and adventures!
DeleteThe Gilded Age would have been on my list, but Cynthia Nixon ruined that for me. Still looking forward to New Gold Mountain most of all.
ReplyDeleteGilded Age has a rather strange cast, some names I would never put in a period set series and then tons of really cute hunks as well. I don't trust Fellowes after Belgravia, so I don't know what to expect but will be watching for sure.
DeleteI am watching Hotel Sacher in Amazon, quite good and the kind that Gran Hotel and Downton Abbey fans would appreciate.
ReplyDeleteI tried to find Sacher and also Germinal (it is airing on Salto) on torrents, but no luck, sadly. I did find Godunov torrents, but, sadly, nobody is seeding them so it is very difficult or near impossible to download.
DeleteWhat's SAlto? I guess I’m lucky. I have Amazon Prime for free until mid-October and Das Sacher comes with the meager free stock the service carries. Aside from its content of original productions (that suck big time) Amazon Prime demands payment or extra (paid) subscriptions to watch good stuff. I wanted to watch Hotel Adlon, but I have to subscribe ($5.99) to PBS Masterpiece. I want to watch the Dyatlov Pass series that you recommended. The same story. $5.99 subscription to Topic. I get to see Sacher for free because I allow ads breaks.
DeleteHotel Sacher was shown in Latin America last July in a digital channel that comes with direct TV and other digital services. That is something very annoying, European series are being shown in Latin America before arriving to USA. It’s like we have become poor relations and get the dregs. Even Call the Midwife’s last season will be shown in Latin America a month before its debut in PBS this October.
Salto is one of the French streamer, dear. It will air on France TV later on, but first it streams there, go figure. So nasty of them to demand so much money, sooner or later it will kill streaming as people will be fed up with paying so much on so many different sides and for what? I imagine they will all have to merge together like BBC and ITV did with BritBox. I know people who pay over a $100 a month for all the streamers and cable and whatnot.
DeleteI did manage to find that Russian film UPON THE MAGIC ROADS or Konek Gorbunok on Torrents recently and found titles in my language, although I do speak Russian too, more or less.
I ask because I’m getting familiar with European streaming and cable systems especially those that deal with period pieces. I heard of something called EPIC that operates in eastern Europe and the Balkans and shows only period drama and fantasy. Brrr, we pay over a $100 for tv services, which encompasses regular cable, premium channels, a sports channel package, a Spanish networks package, Netflix, Thirteen Passport and MHz Choice. A friend added me to his Hulu account, as I mentioned I get Amazon for free until October, and I stream Tubi and whatever YouTube offers free of charge. We used to subscribe to Acorn Tv, it carried almost everything that BritBox does, plus some European series, but it doesn’t update as much as other services, so eventually I got to see everything with no new stuff coming, so we cancelled it.
DeleteThat is Epic Drama channel, it is a cable channel, I think it is free, but it does not come with all cable providers but just some. It mostly airs BBC, ITV and similar dramas, I follow their page on Facebook Epic Drama Serbia. I personally kicked my telly out of the house some ten years ago when our dictator came to power as I couldn't stand his fugly snout on an hourly basis and it was a wonderful mental cleanse for me. Now I just download what I want and TV stations can eff themselves LOL Acorn, Masterpiece and Epix are the homes of period dramas in USA, indeed. We sometimes get some of the French, Russian or European costume dramas on our national channels in Belgrade and Novi Sad (the capital of my Vojvodina) and earlier I used to catch some of it on Croatian national TV too as we have it on the cable. We also have very good HBO and Fox cable channels for Eastern Europe which sometimes air fresh shows sometimes even a day after USA for those big global dramas like Walking Dead, Empire etc.
DeleteI have friends who, like you, have discarded tv sets in favor of smaller gadgets, but I’m too old, not to savvy in technology, and poor sighted to play with those things. I love my smart tv with its large screen, and I hear you can only use Torrent and the often-mentioned VPN in laptops, tablets and phones, none of them have large screens.
DeleteThe kingdom of BBC/ITV in America has been PBS (Masterpiece and Mystery) and it has been free since before cable tv was invented. PBS Masterpiece Amazon is for outside the States because it shows stuff you can watch for free in many PBS channels in USA. They do carry some foreign stuff but not that much. In terms of period pieces, Starz has more than EPIX, and more popular shows (think Outlander, Black Sails, and all the Tudor queen series) and Netflix has more period pieces than Acorn TV. Until recently, if you wanted continental period drama in the States you had to go to specific international signals (RTVE and Antena 3 for Spain, TV5 for France and RAI for Italy). Now, besides Netflix and Tubi, you can catch continental drama in a very nice service called MHz Choice that has a solid collection of period pieces. But honestly, for an addict; like myself is not enough. I would like to tap the UK Sky service that carries shows in all languages, but with English subtitles.
I don't use laptops nor tablets, just my plain old desktop computer :) You can transfer series via a USB stick onto your TV screen to watch them more comfortably. But since you are in USA when you torrent you do have to ad an address blocking programme to protect yourself from the government LOL.
DeleteYes, I forgot Starz, used to be my favourite channel, back in the time of Spartacus and Da Vinci's Demons, but then they went of the road at some point (I find Outlander atrocious and Spanish Princess was borderline offensive in every respect, but I did like White Princess), and are returning it to it now, methinks. Hope their new series do not disappoint.
PS ad me on Facebook if you are there, I'm under my real name there Miroslav Basic Palkovic
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DeleteThank you. I just did. You’ll get a friendship request from Maria Elena, but youalready know my name from my blog.
NOOOO, this adding of gadgets, and the funny names is what troubles me . Most of my friends my age doesn’t even have smart TVs. I come from a pre-technology era. I got my first tv set when I was eight-going to nine years old.
All books by Diana Gabaldon are atrocious, and the series has effected changes for the worst. I loved The White Queen, and its sequel (with reservations), but the Spanish Princess was an embarrassment. Emma Frost was a good writer but went totally woke with TSP. The good news is that she is no longer in charge. “Becoming Elizabeth is now in the hands of another producer. So far, I’m ok with the casting, the Spanish Ambassador is played by a black actor but hey what can you do?
The Serpent Queen is written by Justin Haythe the same guy that wrote Red Sparrow and produced Bohemian Rhapsody and it’s based on a novel
I remember the pre technology era myself, we had black and white TV all the way till my High School days LOL and areal antennas on the roof. Not to mention we lived in pre internet and mobile phone world LOL Hell, even the pre computer world. I got my first computer well after college.
DeleteWe will watch Becoming Elizabeth for Tom Cullen! And they already gave Serpent Queen the woke treatment - her main court lady will be black :)
They have two women of colour in Catherine's court, well, it seems to be mandatory. I got my first omputer for my second masters, 1992 and it wasn't really a computer, it was a glorified wordprocessor called tAndy, had 1 Giga, but my first color tv was in 75. Remember the VCRs when we had to tape everything?
DeleteYes, they have a Hindu one too, methinks. And that brother of colour in Castamar was really put there just for his colour, he really does not have any significant role in it, and the actor is not really good.
DeleteI hadn't even had a VCR just a player for video cassettes with no recording option LOL we were very backwards and poor so I got first colour TV twenty years after you LOL Back in the old Yugoslavia we only had two channels of TV Belgrade and one from TV Novi Sad and that was it, and yet the programme was much better than it is today.
I'm not sure if it would come here, but I'm thinking Riley Road for the win!
ReplyDeleteSome of your channels will probably buy it as it is BBC, possibly PBS.
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