We’ve hit the mid-season for many Turkish TV shows. This is the point where (in the historical dramas at least) a major storyline is resolved, usually involving the defeat of a major villain. It’s also a point where the producers consider the future of many shows, renewing or cancelling them based on their performance so far, and starting new shows to fill the gaps.
In the first of these TV news posts, I mentioned a few shows I was enjoying and some others that were still to come; with some of the latter now screening it’s time for an update. Only vague spoilers during the first bit, then I’ll warn before discussing the half-season story for Alparslan: Büyük Selçuklu (a highlight for me this year).
Shahraman (Netflix 2023); Turkish title: Şahmaran
This show premiered on Jan 20, and I’ve watched the first episode. Looks really mysterious and mystical so far; I am hooked already. Seems like its going to draw heavily on the folklore origin for the story, so the material on Wikipedia (note the Vikipedi article in Turkish is more detailed) may turn out to be either serious spoilers or merely useful historical background. I’ve read it anyway, so here are some non-spoilers that may be interesting:
Wikipedia gives a few locations in Anatolia for the setting of the folklore story, including the ancient city of Tarsus in Mersin, and secondly the village of İslahiye in Gaziantep (conveniently close to the mountain named Şahmaran, to the southeast ). However, the show was apparently filmed in Adana, which is close to another historical setting: the village and castle of Yılankale (Snake Castle). Vikipedi suggests this is the modern name for the awesome 12th-century castle built by the Armenian King Levon I (see picture, and the many others on Wikimedia Commons).
Anyway, I think this must be the castle that is briefly viewable in the background during the opening of episode 1, and I’m hoping we get to see a lot more of it. Also looking forward to more about the rose imagery (note the rose bushes in the Şahmeran paintings above) that is so prominent in the first episode.
Kuruluş: Osman (ATV)
Sadly, the Vikings haven’t really lived up to their potential as bad guys this season. İpek Karapınar has been unconvincing with her portrayal of Frigg as “crazy Viking woman who hums tunelessly when she kills someone”. She was much better as Çolpan Han in Destan. Viking leader Olof (played by Nihat Altınkaya) is much more fun to watch, but sometimes he has a kind of twinkle in his eye that makes him seem more like a lovable daft old uncle than a murdering Varangian. I do like the way that his character is the only one who has a realistic estimate of Osman’s abilities; he chuckles when anyone proposes a plan that is “certain” to defeat Osman, and he always tells people that they need to bring more warriors to each battle.
The highlight of the season has been Deniz Barut as the Sultan’s Regent, Ismihan Sultan. Her character understands how to wield power, and how to play off various factions against each other in order to keep it. It’s been interesting to watch the many characters who disagree with what she does, yet feel powerless to act against her.
Ateş Kuşları (ATV 2023)
This is a show I was particularly excited about, as it represented a new opportunity for the writers of my favourite show Destan (ATV 2021), who I felt were treated unfairly. The show premiered on 13 January, but I haven’t got around to watching the first episode yet. If anyone asks why, I will claim that it’s just because there is too much good TV at the moment. However, the real reason is partly because some of the latest marketing material scares me; I worry that the show might be a bit too schmaltzy for my taste. Here, first look at the original banner that I posted once before, with a cool phoenix (the name of the show translates as “firebirds”), and a nice fiery font:
Now compare that to the current picture on the ATV site, which has the cheesy “adult pretending to write like a child” font, over pictures of people who look far too clean and happy for a story about the suffering of street children:
Oh well, I will watch it eventually, and maybe I will be surprised.
Alparslan: Büyük Selçuklu (TRT1)
Although I did enjoy season 1 of Alparslan, season 2 has been some truly excellent TV so far. Before I start talking spoilers, I will put in this quote from Flora (machine-translated subtitles) which made me laugh out loud when it appeared out of nowhere in the middle of an intimate conversation.1 Don’t scroll past the caption if spoilers bother you:
There are many places where season 2 improves on the previous: Tekfur Grigor (played by Serhat Tutumluer) is so much better than season 1’s Tekfur Kekavmenos, who was over-acted to the point of farce by Toprak Sergen. I accept that Kekavmenos had to be portrayed as a fool (after all, he was responsible for underestimating Alparslan, and losing Vaspurakan as a result) but the way that Toprak Sergen’s voice went lower and deeper each week was just silly. And as much as I loved Fahriye Evcen Özçivit as Akça Hatun/Aybike, her one-dimensional drive for revenge was nowhere near as interesting as Kayra Zabcı’s story arc as Seferiye Hatun.
Best of all though, the Yınal Bey/Öke Hatun storyline that offered so much potential was very satisfyingly concluded. Yınal’s character was masterfully written, and played to perfection by Uygar Özçelik. A loyal citizen with a deep underlying grievance, manipulated into rebellion by a smart Byzantine governor and by his own wife who simply wanted the best for him; Yınal was balanced on a knife edge for a while, and I was honestly not sure on which side he would fall. He very nearly succeeded in his rebellion too, partly due to his half-brother the Sultan giving him one too many chances; if it weren’t for new character Qutalmış seeing the potential for a rebellion of his own and withdrawing his forces at the last minute, things could have gone differently.
As I mentioned previously, Qutalmış is quite an important character historically, as his son goes on to found the Anatolian branch of the Selçuk Empire. As that family tree I linked showed, Qutalmış and Alparslan are related through Alparslan’s great-grandfather, Selçuk Bey himself. Qutalmış is played by Kanbolat Görkem Arslan, a favourite of mine from such shows as Destan and Kuruluş: Osman. I’m glad to have him on board here!
You can watch Alparslan: Büyük Selçuklu for free on TRT1’s official Youtube here.
Kuruluş: Osman is similarly available on Youtube here.
Ateş Kuşları is available here.
My guide for using subtitles is here.
Alparslan: Büyük Selçuklu 35. Bölüm; timestamp 10:26