It probably doesn’t need to be mentioned given that price tag, but the show’s pretty much top-to-bottom gorgeous, as well. Everything from the lighting in Kublai’s court to vast tracking shots of Marco riding out of the Imperial City on horseback are stunners; though the size of your preferred Netflix-viewing device may hinder its magnificence if allowed. Can we all agree that a show like this, whose entire back-half of episodes revolve around the building of a trebuchet, deserves to be viewed on a screen bigger than the size of your palm?
Perhaps that’s the show’s Achilles heel, as well: the lavish budget, which resulted in an exquisitely produced, beautifully costumed, tangibly realized world, also brought to life the dramatic inertness. “Boring,” as a measurement for entertainment, is subjective. Thanks to its jagged, aimlessness in the opening hours and lack of character depth all around, the show isn’t exactly “bingeable” (I only watched two episodes back-to-back), but I wouldn’t call any stretch of time in Marco Polo‘s freshman series boring, not even its flailing pilot. It’s just… adjusting itself. Finding out what works, and what doesn’t. A test run, if you will. Which, admittedly, some may (and definitely have) called yawningly dull.
But there’s a certain scrappiness here that I found endearing, a show, who pretty much draws comparison to one of the biggest TV series of all time by merely existing, attempting to stay on level ground with said behemoth. Even I can’t admit that Marco Polo is anywhere near the level of the Seven Kingdom’s sumptuously laid out scheming, but I also couldn’t say that it completely fails in its attempts, either.
“It gets better,” in general, as a critical critique, is pretty much a non-statement. But it’s the unfortunate truth with Netflix’s new series. Goings-on in episodes five and six sprinkle hints at the future, but a big switcheroo at the end of episode eight leads to sort-of fascinating return-to-the-beginning penultimate hour before a supremely satisfying all-out-brawl in “The Heavenly and Primal.” The statistic of good hours to bad ones seems way out of whack, but I’d far prefer a series that grows into a better version of itself than one that does the opposite.
You may think it weird for me to have gotten this far in a review for a show called Marco Polo and not mention anything about the actor, Lorenzo Richelmy, actually playing Marco Polo. Here’s the thing: he’s not great, initially. His accent is thicker than quicksand, he’s stiff, and he has no real chemistry with anyone onscreen save Wong’s Kublai Khan. Which is an issue that meets an eye-roll inducing climax with a late-in-the-game romance between he and a forbidden princess played by Zhu Zhu.
But, and stop me if this sounds familiar, he gets better. The series, shot in real time in places like Italy, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia, forced Richelmy to learn English specifically for the role. Subsequently, each episode he grows ever-so-slightly more understandable, more present, more confident, more watchable. Richelmy, in the title role, evolves from a meager, humbling, and somewhat lifeless beginning, into an interesting, captivating presence to watch on screen. Though it leaves a lot to be desired in the plotting and character-building departments, and it doesn’t exactly gel with the binge-happy platform it resides on, the show as a whole – packing all of its crackerjack plot twists and flinch-worthy fight scenes into its final episodes – grows and morphs alongside Richelmy into something surprisingly watchable. Just leave your Game of Thrones expectations at the door.
