Nebahat Çehre, Okan Yalabik, Halit Ergenç, Selma Ergeç, Nur Fettahoglu, and Meryem Uzerli in Muhtesem Yüzyil (2011)

This link takes you to the first episode of a Turkish television drama. The show ran for four seasons, beginning in 2011. It’s in Turkish but there are English subtitles. The plot is centered on Suleiman I (the Magnificent), but has much artistic license. 

Why watch:  

  1. It’s done beautifully. The costumes, set (Topkapi Palace!), cinematography, score–it’s all great.
  2. It’s good immersion for terminology. While to us words like imam, mufti, vizier, etc., are “vocab” words, they’re used in everyday speech in the show. Repeated exposure to these terms in their natural use helps us remember, understand better, and use them naturally ourselves. The same thing happens with place names–the more we hear it in context, the better we’ll understand and internalize.
  3. It’s a good test of your knowledge: Since it’s based on facts, test it against what you’ve learned. What does the show get right, what’s almost right, what is super fictionalized, and what do you need to fact check?

Here’s it’s IMDB link.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1848220/