Midnight at the Pera Palace

Love the story & setting. Beautifully filmed!!! A serious subject matter, and the moments of comedy, very well timed. It does help to know a little history to follow this series. Stay alert & focus because the back and forth through portal of time can get confusing. NOT A COPY of Outlander! Give this a chance. The styling and hair for Hazal Kaya, is not so good, took away from her acting, so distracting. I know the role is a young, mess of a woman, yet the styling still fails her. We can give her a break. Male lead, perfect, and the hotel manager fantastic. Turkish film making is fantastic, stories and everything else! Why do people compare this to shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, they are totally different, and depends what kind of movies you like. It is not a fair comparison.

A time-travel murder mystery set predominately in 1919 Istanbul. It doesn't take itself too seriously, the plot is well handled - for the most part, pretty decent acting and some nice scenery. Most importantly, the characters are likeable and by the end I was up for a second series.

Began watching with zero expectations, wavered a few episodes in but glad I persevered. It seemed a bit all over the place to begin with, but I gradually learned to trust the writers knew where they were going. There are some neat twists and turns and points where it was initially confusing - only to be resolved quite satisfyingly.

It features a strong female lead, notably, a character with strengths and weaknesses - it makes some mild feminist points without being woke or overbearing (other writers could learn something here). Not sure how historically accurate any of it is (it is a time travel story after all) and it does delve into some intriguing alternative history.

The Brits don't come out of it too well - something of a common theme lately, but it's inoffensive stuff.

Reviewers are thinking the lead role has done poor acting, but the actual problem is the script. The character Esra is a journalist who wants to do something big in the world, but she talks and acts likes a 5 year old or less. The character herself is portrayed as the biggest idiot of Istanbul, so we cant blame the actress for this. She was just acting the way the script demanded it to be. Sometimes I felt I was watching the film, 'The Princess Bride' or some movie of that kind. It's like a parody and is filled with potholes.

I am writing this review after watching the 5th episode of the show and unable to take the poor screenplay...

I have never watched a Turkish show before. It appears many other reviews were familiar with the main actress, I was not. Many reviews said her acting ruined the show, while I didn't think she was superb, I didn't find it bad- this may also be because any overacting I attributed more to the dubbing as it seemed vocal in nature. Speaking of, the dubbing was good, only a few small instances did I find it distracting.

I should have watched a bit more attentively as there are a couple things I have questions on that may have actually been answered I just missed it.

The dates and times jump around and it's just a quick title on the screen, it would have been helpful for it to be up longer or like hey folks here is the timeline. As an American not well-versed in Turkish history, the dates and timing weren't meaningful to me and maybe made it harder to appreciate.

The setting was stunning. It's a gorgeous hotel in Istanbul. The set design was amazing as were the costumes and they did such a great job differentiating the different years, even those that were closer together. It was a beautiful series to watch.

I gave it 7/10. From the last episode it would appear we are expecting or wanting another season. The first episode plays on the correlation to Agatha Christie but it's only mentioned once or twice after. I also wish the set up for how she got to the hotel and whatnot would have been a bit better done.

The cinematography, production and quality is quite good as a Turk I can confirm that this is one of the best fantasy-historical Turkish series I've ever seen. On the first 3 episodes It lacks something that I can't really describe. Maybe she isn't shocked enough to be in a different period of time? Or she isn't aware of the risk she takes? Something makes it odd about actress but overall it's SO GOOD definitely recommend!