CLASSIC HISTORICAL SERIES: PRINCESS SISSI

PRINCESS SISSI (SISSI / PRINCESSE SISSI)
SABAN/CINÉ-GROUPE
French Canada-France-Germany, 1997-1998

If you ever wonder what the seven hells could ever lead a pre-teen Spanish middle-class girl to become interested and passionate about such an obscure historical topic as the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (or why Roderich and Elizaveta are my APH OTP), the answer is this heart-wrenching and thrilling historical series with a myth arc that keeps on the dramatic pace until the well-earned happy ending.

Meet Elisabeth, AKA Sissi, a Bavarian noble who happens to be a tomboy with an iron will.

One of my childhood heroines. She happened to look and act like me, so I identified with her and was always excited to follow her around!

One day, the Archdukes of Austria visit the region, and Sissi becomes more than just friends with them...

This is Francis Joseph, heir to the throne, who will become 

her sweetheart and finally her fiancé and husband.

Charles, the younger brother, is there mostly for comic relief and getting friendzoned.

At least he is loyal.

Their mum, however... Kaiserin Sophia is constantly opposing the plans of the "Bavarian shrew",

whom she will never accept for a daughter-in-law (for Sissi's family is liberal and she is too dynamic)

Helene "Nene" was here no longer Sissi's older sister, but the court-born and court-bred daughter of an Austrian general, surnamed von Grossberg. Still she was a feminine proper lady who knew her social standing (the Sansa to Sissi's Arya) and wondered what ever Francis Joseph saw in that shrew.

It served her right to be paired with and marry Fritz the liniment seller, with whom she was in cahoots to usurp the Austrian throne!

The main bad guy is the old fellow most to the left here, Chancellor Klemens von Metternich... eh...

Zottornich. They changed his surname a little and turned him from well-intentioned rightish statesman who ordered purges of separatist liberals... to despotic evil chancellor with a tinge for genocide. 

A bit like what TV-only Thronies view Tywin Lannister versus the real thing (for those who have read his backstory).

I fell for Colonel Andrássy Gyula as soon as I saw him. 

This dashing freedom fighter kept my thoughts wandering at class.

It was for his sake that I began to listen to Kárpátia...

Finding out that he survived the Revolution, 

and that Sissi, when crowned, cheated on her kaiser with him,

made my over-a-decade-older self feel elated.

Though the heart of Andrássy ezredes was already taken up by this young person,

acrobat and countess Ferenczy Ida.

I mean, I felt happy for her. Even though I dreamt of being Sissi and stealing a kiss from her drága.

Ida wouldn't feel the least jealous, would she?

Neither would she have been when he flirted with Kaiserin Erzsébet.

What if they ever had a ménage à trois?

I was hooked by the whole story, like I would be later on with A Song of Ice and Fire. Love, comedy, idyls, adventures, courtly intrigue, epic battles, fight for freedom (the Hungarian 1848 Revolution was one of the story's most exciting aspects, and the climax took place during it)... All a thrill-seeking and beauty-loving young person could ever wish for!

Google "princess sissi" on YouTube, and you will surely be able to watch more than one episode in English, German, or maybe another language. A warmly recommended series.

CLASSIC HISTORICAL SERIES: CAPTAIN FRACASSE

CAPTAIN FRACASSE 
(FRACASSE/CAPITÀ FRACASSE)
Ellipsanime/D'Ocon Films
France-Spain (Catalonia), 1999

This French-Spanish adventure-thriller co-production, set in late-seventeenth-century France (grand-siècle, ie reign of Louis XIV), hooked me as a pre-teen. It aired on Club Super 3 (Catalan TV kids' block) as a weekday afternoon cartoon.
So there was this five-person actor troupe (a strongman, an alchemist, a Romany girl, and two young lovers) in Paris. By day, these outcasts were... well, actors. By night, they were the Fearless Five who solved every mystery they could come across, frequently dealing with the schemes of corrupt courtiers.
The main villains were two such courtiers: the Duke of Vallombreuse and Countess Diane, as suave as they were wicked, and to such a degree that the Lannister twins appear coarse in comparison.

By the way, Vallombreuse was hopelessly in love for Isabelle (the female lead, one of the lovers, played the innocent heroine on stage), and came up with oodles of ruses to get her.

Though she, that brave and clever redhead, always successfully escaped.

One episode to remember:
Episode 11 - La venjança de l'esperit (original French title. L'homme de Brunevoy)

Members of high society are being mysteriously assassinated. One day, a humanoid creature with superhuman strength enters the theatre to carry off one of their guests. Thus, the audience across the fourth wall uncovers a dark tale of revenge, after a perfidious treachery, years before on the battlefield of Brunevoy. The last victim is to be... Vallombreuse! The appearance of Isabelle gives the answer, and enables to bring succour to a tormented soul...

This episode was obviously a WPR to the Count of Monte Cristo (though back then, as a ten-year-old, I merely knew the title of that story). There was a backstory with Vallombreuse and other courtiers fighting, as young men, in the Low Countries theatre of the 30 Years' War (for France against the Spanish tercios, obviously)... with a young lieutenant of the landed gentry (I do not remember his name, but I think he was even named Edmond!). So they thought he was too poor and of too low a noble rank to be an officer (classist, eh?)... and they conspired to have the colonel unwittingly pull a Uriah Gambit, and then they left the mortally wounded lieutenant for dead on the battlefield. Fortunately, 17th-century-Qyburn (previously known as 17th-century-Baron-von-Frankenstein) dropped by at twilight and had the half-bright idea of resurrecting the young officer. The main story was the plight of the half-clockwork lieutenant to get his revenge on those who betrayed him, now all of them successful courtiers and the cream of French society. VALLOMBREUSE INCLUDED - this one is furthermore the FINAL ITEM on his black list. So the resurrected ex-officer killed those toffs one by one by one by one... Yet, ere he could off Vallombreuse and do the nation of France such a great service that he (the lieutenant) would be made the next Duke of Vallombreuse and no one would care about his life-support devices... he came upon Isabelle, the redhead of the troupe and female lead of the show, and fell for her. Cue Isa telling the lieutenant that revenge won't solve anything. The episode ended with the officer's accidental death, which came as a WHAM for the ten-year-old spectator (It also inspired our class in secondary school to make a film of the story for an Arts and Crafts project; a slasher with yours truly in the lead role and a scary white Venetian mask to conceal my face... The queen bee at class and her posse played the items on my black list - Amina the queen bee herself as the final victim or Vallombreuse)!

The cast of the series was exciting, kind of the best cast (next to that of Princess Sissi) I had ever seen, and the series was so true to life and so exciting that it pains me that (unlike Sissi) no episodes can be found on YouTube! A shame, since this series makes up a trilogy, IMOHO, with Princess Sissi and Yolanda, both of which I will soon review here.