If You Love The Crown, You're Going to Adore the New Hulu Drama The Great

Are you a fan of period drama shows like PBS' Downton Abbey or Netflix's The Crown? Well, we hope you have a Hulu account.

Come May 15th, Hulu will debut The Great, based on the life of 18th century Russian empress Catherine the Great—and we're already at the edge of our seats: "The Great is a satirical, comedic drama about the rise of Catherine the Great from outsider to the longest reigning female ruler in Russia's history," the show's description reads. The first season of the series, from Civic Center Media in association with MRC Television, chronicles an "idealistic, romantic" young Catherine who comes to Russia for an arranged marriage with Emperor Peter. "Hoping for love and sunshine, she finds instead a dangerous, depraved, backward world that she resolves to change. All she has to do is kill her husband, beat the church, baffle the military and get the court onside," the show's summary continues. The fictional series, which weaves in the occasional historical fact, stars Elle Fanning as Catherine, Nicholas Hoult, Phoebe Fox, Adam Godley, Gwilym Lee, Charity Wakefield, Douglas Hodge, Sacha Dhawan, Sebastian de Souza, Bayo Gbadamosi, and Belinda Bromilow.

The Great is created, written, and executive produced by Oscar-nominated writer Tony McNamara (THE FAVOURITE) and executive produced by Marian Macgowan, Thruline’s Josh Kesselman, and Ron West, Echo Lake’s Brittany Kahan Ward, Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding, Elle Fanning, Mark Winemaker and Matt Shakman.

If you're looking for another great historical drama to hold you over until the middle of May, we'd like to suggest these movies and TV shows like Downton Abbey to keep you entertained. Otherwise, you can find us watching this trailer again, and again, and sending it to everyone on our "Girls' Night" list.

Here's to hoping we'll all be able to 'gather round, clink glasses in a toast, and watch the drama unfold together by then—no group video chats required.