The Regime

By attempting to merge elements from "The Death of Stalin," "The Grand Budapest Hotel," and "Borat" into a single narrative, the show becomes a bewildering concoction rather than a cohesive piece. The 'satire' - if it can be called that - stumbles significantly, as it appears unanchored from any semblance of reality. Instead, it leans heavily on bizarrely synthesized stereotypes of Eastern Europe in the American imagination.

The characters are shallow caricatures, lacking depth and authenticity, which further distances the narrative from delivering any meaningful or resonant messages. The show oscillates between trying to be a biting political satire (of what, though?) and a slapstick comedy, never fully committing to either.

The production values and the performances by the cast are commendable for the most part, yet they are not nearly enough to salvage the show from its fundamental flaws.

Heavy satire, talking about a "democratic" regime in a fictional country, which LOVES freedom and celebrates Love with prisons, opinion monitoring to combat misinformation.

Kate Winslet is perfect on the role, she has charisma, and sound crazy, but you can't hate her. Good cast around her and she is a star.

Hope the next episodes keep the same tone of mockery, love what the writers did

People that agree with the the way the world is heading, won't like this series for sure. Since they don't have that much sense of humor.

Hope the characters get the evolution and deepenest as they deserve, but for the first episode it was actually good.

All the other reviews apparently completely missed the point of this show. One must assume that they probably never heard of, and certainly never had to deal with, the Nikolai Ceausescu regime. Winslett captures the mercurial insanity of Romania's long-time dictator, with the kow-towing sycophants that surrounded him, the ostentatious palace, the complete and paranoiac disregard for the people and economy of the country. It will be interesting to see if it gets even more absurd in upcoming episodes, mirroring the murderous ego-centric eccentricities of that megalomaniac. In fact, it is about time someone mocked him.

Based on the first episode I'm all in and look forward to the rest of series. Some critics say it isn't funny. I guess that depends on one's particular brand of humor. There are levels and genres of humor. The Regime certainly isn't laugh out loud hilarious and I don't know why anyone expected it to be based on the trailers. Our main character is a very quirky, eccentric woman who believes she is righteous in all she does but has a paranoia of mold. Well, so do I, even if not to her degree. In this episode we learn that her father died of lung disease so it stands to reason she'd be scared and to the degree she is scared is the funny part. Kate Winslet delivers in spades and she gets better every time I watch her. She has the capacity in The Regine to garner sympathy while just having brow beaten one of her staff. It's kooky!

I have to say I expected it to be way worse, and after watching 3 episodes I'm pleasantly surprised. Being from a post-communist country, I can definitely sense the satire and sarcasm of this show. They managed to portray the absurdity of dictatorships and its dictators pretty well. It reminds me of Lukashenko's Belarus or Ceausescu's Romania. I liked the subtle references to certain people and events. The "reunification" thing is basically what happened in Crimea, the Corporal practically became Elena's Rasputin for a while, and the whole "rural craze" was a spot on too, as such things really happened in my country during communism, not to mention faking some pseudo-historical theories of one's origin to boost their egos ("The Foundling"). I have to admit I am quite entertained, intrigued and want to watch more. Lastly, I will say that I'm not really surprised at the low rating, as there is many things about this show that your typical western audience simply wouldn't get.