Gogol

I expected this to be a biography and instead was completely blown away with THE most captivating thing. If you like entrancingly gothic, supernatural epics, character-driven, and visually beautiful, this is all of that and more. The opening scene grabbed me and that was it. It takes you on such a journey. I am completely obsessed. The idea to place Gogol as a character in his stories is brilliant. They cast him perfectly. You can't help but love this character. Alexander Petrov is fantastic. And what happens is stunning, shocking really. The setting and costumes, the ideas and the characters are truly enchanting ! It is truly in my top 3 shows that I have ever watched, the other 2 being El Hipnotizidor and Penny Dreadful. I can't help but gush. I so hope they continue with it.

This TV series is described as based on works of Gogol. That could well mean that Sleepy Hollow was also somehow related to Gogol the writer as there is a very strong similarity. I think that Gogol and the author of Sleepy Hollow were contemporaries.

In this TV series the men wear the best hats and the women often wear nothing at all.

I am three episodes in and particularly enjoying the character Binkh who is well portrayed with some fine, subtle facial expressions.

What a wild mix of characters! Gogol's family servant, the doctor, the "police chief" and of course Gogol himself...all could be hilariously outrageous, including some very witty, sharp dialogue here and there. If they could have maintained the more camp quality throughout it would have worked better. But ultimately, the story, character decisions and development altogether became rather silly and (to me) not so enjoyable...particularly the religious and occult content. I round it up to 6. But it is great to see a quality production from Russia.

I found this by accident on youtube. Look for Janson Media, they have a lot of great Russian/east euro films and series.

Gogol is an excellent kind of supernatural mystery series that has the ambience of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow but much more bizarre and involved. Great acting, effects, cinematography, direction. Highly recommended.

The 8 TV episodes or 3 connected movies of Gogol saga seem very similar to SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999) in style. However its story of murder, revenge, manipulation and love across two worlds bears resemblance more to A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1987). Just look at ACGS's front page image in IMDB and one may mistake it for being a poster of GOGOL (2017-2019).

As a whole GOGOL is well made and is interesting to behold. Unfortunately the latter part turns hasty and unconvincing. Of course this defect may be overlooked if there are following episodes or sequels, then we can judge accordingly. It's a pity that there aren't any. C'est la vie.