I was deeply unmoved by Hulu’s "The Great" after a mere 20 minutes of its pilot episode. Had it not been recommended by a friend whose artistic sensibilities I admire, I wouldn't have given the period drama-comedy a chance for redemption; instead, I would have simmered in my repulsion of melodramatic art filmed through a cartoonish lens. I would’ve considered "The Great" the epitome of the goofy genre I find so distasteful and ruminated about the lost hour of my Very Important life.

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It was Catherine's profound naivety and Emperor Peter’s caricaturistic idiocy, combined with the show’s substantial use of dry satire, that proved the story, at least initially, to be a repellent one. Ten minutes into the first episode, Catherine—with her staunch commitment to invent silver linings amid tragically hopeless situations—begins to come to her senses when her first time “making love” is the antithesis of her storybook fantasy. Having just confided in her maid Marial (played by Phoebe Fox) about how she imagines her special night will unfold, she can scarcely contain her excitement as she monologues about the moment in her mind’s eye when Peter tenderly and passionately embraces her and whispers sweet poetry before she even gets the chance to slip on her silk taupe robe for bed; but what unfolds is neither poetic nor picturesque.

Imagine this: Peter enters the bedroom where Catherine is perched on their bed. She looks at him longingly and arches her back, meanwhile he’s absorbed in a conversation with his best friend who leisurely follows him into the room. He pulls her body to the edge of the bed, lifts her dress and immediately begins to have sex with Catherine, all the while rehashing his afternoon of shooting rifles at swarms of ducks. His best friend smokes tobacco from the other side of the room, lets out a brief laugh as he listens to Peter speak, and then, after thirty seconds of rabbit-fucking Catherine, Peter comes. Catherine winces. He zips up his pants and addresses his new wife for the first time since he entered the room and smiles with pride. Like a boy who’s just tied his shoes for the first time. “Very well Empress,” he says with a nod. “I do hope my seed has found purchase.”