Emmy FYC: Christina Hendricks in "The Romanoffs"
Team Experience is sharing FYCs as the Television Academy votes on Emmy nominations over the next two weeks. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff.
The general consensus, if we even can have one in these divisive times, seems to be that Matthew Weiner’s The Romanoffs is an ignoble failure. As his immediate follow-up to Mad Men, the seminal, peak-TV series that gave him pretty much carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to creatively, The Romanoffs arrived last fall on a wave of buzz and eager anticipation. With a star-studded, international cast and intriguing, globe-trotting storyline (made possible by Amazon’s $70 million investment), what would Weiner & Co. ultimately deliver? The answer: Zzzs. (I sort of checked out mid-way through the second to last episode, as a matter of fact.)
Nevertheless, within this eight-part limited series (which surely was meant to continue?) are elements that succeed better than they ought to quite frankly. Indeed, the parts are greater than their sum, and one in particular stood out to me immediately/in retrospect: Christina Hendricks...