‘Troy: Fall of a City’ on Netflix Has a Steamy Threesome — And Racial Controversy

If you want drama, leave it to ancient Greece. At least, that’s the thought process behind the BBC and Netflix’s latest epic miniseries, Troy: Fall of a City. Told over the course of eight hourlong episodes, Troy is an adaptation of The Iliad — and what a scandalous adaptation it is, both on and off the screen.

The series tells the story of the Trojan War, largely centering on the love affair between Paris (Louis Hunter) and Helen (Bella Dayne). As far as big-budget dramas about ancient times go, it’s about what you would expect. Characters are buffer and more attractive than they likely ever were in real life. The sex scenes are steamy and plentiful but chaste enough to appear on cable. The fight scenes and set designs look neat. However, when this miniseries aired on BBC in February of 2018, all of those elements were ignored. Instead, viewers focused on an allegedly racist casting controversy.

There are three black actors who star as major characters on the show — David Gyasi as Achilles, Hakeem Kae-Kazim as Zeus, and Lemogang Tsipa as Patroklus. These casting choices immediately sparked criticisms from viewers who claimed the show wasn’t historically accurate. The criticisms became so heated that they affected a large amount of the coverage Troy initially received. The series currently has an audience score of 7 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and the few Netflix user ratings the show has criticize its casting. This became such a focus of discussion, Radio Times interviewed a professor from the University of Cambridge about whether or not the show was “blackwashing” history, and Variety spoke to the show’s creators about why they cast the actors they did (for the record, the creators said they cast the actors who captured their characters best).

Without editorializing too much, it should be noted there have been very few complaints about the historical accuracy of a show about ancient Greece featuring characters who exclusively speak in British accents.

Ahem.

Despite getting decent critical reviews and having a reported budget of £16 million, Troy never seemed to catch on for U.K. audiences. That even held true for the show’s steamiest episode. As covered by The Sun, the ratings for “Spoils of War” which featured a threesome, were significantly lower than those for The Voice, which aired the same night.

So does Troy: Fall of a City live up to the heat of its surrounding scandal? Not really. There are some great performances (Gyasi makes a good Achilles) and compelling scenes, but the series as a whole often feels too predictable to be must-watch TV. If you like shows about ancient Greece, definitely give it a shot. If not, you’re not missing out on much. British accents and all.

Stream Troy: Fall of a City on Netflix