Fancy seeing Kate Winslet breaking bad? Me too, so the new trailer for The Regime is very exciting. The new Max show is a political satire that features Winslet as a terrifying political heavyweight in a (we think) fictional European country – a country that, under her iron rule, may be heading for a very dark place indeed. With Martha Plimpton as the US Secretary of State assigned to the country, Succession writer Will Tracey plotting and Stephen Frears directing, this looks like it's going to be a delicious and possibly darkly disturbing treat.
The Regime was originally called The Palace but the new title for one of the best streaming services appears to be a much better reflection of the show. It's about a political empire unraveling and sliding into chaos as Winslet's Chancellor loses her grip on reality. According to HBO's executive vice president of programming, Francesca Orsi, the scripts are "wildly original, prescient, and dazzling".
Will The Regime be worth streaming?
The show hasn't been sent out to any reviewers yet but the trailers make it look very good indeed – so good it might well make it onto our best Max shows list. Kate Winslet is always great value, as is Martha Plimpton, and from what we can see of the show so far it looks cinematically lush and rather epic.
But the trailer does raise lots of questions without really answering any of them: should we draw any conclusions from the fact that most of the accents we here are very clearly cut-glass and English? How well balanced are the drama and the humor? And was that Winslet dressed like a Hannah Waddingham Christmas special mid-way through?
There will be six episodes of the limited series, The Regime, and it will debut on HBO and on Max on March 3, 2024. This one's definitely going on our wish list.
