On August 2, the final episode of the first season of the series “Eterna” was released. We tell you how the new attempt to adapt Vera Kamsha’s popular series of novels turned out and whether this is the fantasy we were counting on.

How long have we waited for a Russian fantasy series that’s not embarrassing to discuss over a cup of coffee? There have certainly been successful examples, like “The Librarian” and “The Magic Precinct”, but these are more urban fantasy than epic. “Eterna” stakes a claim to being the biggest premiere of the year in our industry — and not just because of the army of fans of Vera Kamsha’s novels. Meticulously designed costumes, sets in St. Petersburg and Bukhara, epic scope, Yandex’s marketing support — the series has all of this in abundance. But is that enough for popular love?

At the heart of “Eterna” is Kertiana, an alternative Europe with Renaissance overtones, where power is divided between usurpers and descendants of deposed kings, and sacred prophecies of the apocalypse are mixed with personal dramas and court intrigues. Here, exile Aldo Rakan dreams of reclaiming his dynasty’s throne, while young Richard Ockdell goes to a squire school to avenge his father’s defeat. Every character risks becoming a servant of fate — or its accomplice.

The world of “Eterna” is one of the series’ main successes. The creators went all out with the budget: big cities, detailed costumes, every palace or tavern with character. Visually, the creators balance somewhere between “Dune” and “Game of Thrones.” Here, deserts coexist with huge palaces, and nomadic bandits with noble knights. The sterility and precision of the imagery both propels the series forward — it’s pleasant to look at cloaks, markets, swords — and hinders it: it feels like you’re examining museum exhibits rather than a living world. There’s more theatricality here than one would like. Both in staging and in acting style.

The creators decided to repeat the mistake of the previous adaptation not to spare the audience, dumping dozens of names, locations, oaths, events, and prophecies on the unprepared viewer in the first couple of episodes. If you get distracted by tea, you risk losing the thread. But as the plot develops, the action becomes clearer and more coherent, characters get a chance to reveal themselves in setting and motivation, and the overall picture begins to form into something cohesive. It’s sad that the script overly “chews” the style and moves of already known franchises, though there is a drop of domestic school (vivat, hussars and musketeers!).

The cast is diverse. Ivan Trushin (Richard Ockdell) is dynamic, textured, sometimes overly impulsive, but not boring. Anton Rogachev (Aldo) initially gets lost in the scenery and next to more seasoned colleagues, but finds himself closer to the middle in scenes with the beautiful and charming Valentina Lyapina. An absolute masterclass in screen presence and charisma is delivered by Yuri Chursin, who survived the recast of the previous unsuccessful adaptation attempt and once again embodies the image of Duke Roké Alva, a brilliant swordsman, card sharp, and Ockdell’s mentor.

Despite the overall scope, there is sometimes a lack of a sense of scale; battles occasionally feel intimate and low-budget. But where the staging falters, attention to world details saves the atmosphere. However, there is potential for improvement in future seasons; the potential is visible.

A big problem with “Eterna” is its secondariness: events, characters, vocabulary have been seen somewhere before — and an experienced viewer will easily catch flashes of déjà vu. On the other hand, the series, while not forgetting its references, skillfully weaves features of domestic cinema into the story and, importantly, does not try to blindly copy Western fantasy but seeks its own style.

“Eterna” is undoubtedly a step forward for Russian epic fantasy. Yes, it doesn’t even come close to “Game of Thrones,” which it emulates in almost everything: from narrative style to scenes with individual characters. But where else have we seen domestic sword duels, religious fanatics blindly believing in the One and ready to burn their neighbors alive, and finally Yevgeny Stychkin as a community leader with an odious beard?!

At times the series is naive and clumsy, but you feel an ambitious attempt to create a magical epic in a country where magic is usually sought not in TV series but in pay envelopes. The season turned out far from perfect — but it’s our own, with a recognizable face and its own quirks. The first Russian saga about magic and the struggle for the throne turned out to be more alive.