Alexander The Making of a God is a Netflix documentary drama series released on January 31, 2024. It is from Tailfeather Productions in partnership with Lion TV, with executive producers Lucy van Beek and Nick Catliff. There are 6 episodes with a runtime of about 44-38 minutes.
The series cast includes Buck Braithwaite as Alexander, Mido Hamada as Darius, Agni Scott as Stateira, Will Stevens as Hephaestion, Souad Faress, Dino Kelly as Ptolemy, and Kosha Engler. The documentary also features various experts like Dr Salima Ikram, Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Calliope Limneos-Papkosta, Riham Abdulla Zaki, Dr Jennifer Finn, Carolyn Willekes, Prof Ali Ansari and Touraj Daryee.
The docuseries follows the journey of an exiled young prince who was determined to establish his place in the world, after his father’s assassination. Alexander had an unwavering desire to defeat the Persian King Darius, leading to his ambition of claiming the largest Western empire in history, which included territories from Greece to part of India, all achieved in just under six years.
Alexander The Making of a God Review
The docu-drama starts at the point where Alexander voluntarily goes into exile after being insulted by the army general Attalus, calling him a bastard. Seeing how King Philip didn’t defend him, he goes away with his two friends and advisers – Hephaestion and Ptolemy. Although the experts refrain from defining Alexander’s sexuality by saying “it can’t necessarily be defined in modern terms…There was just being sexual” – the dramatisation inclines towards bisexuality if anything.
After the violent murder of King Philip, a young Alexander ascends the throne of Macedonia and takes up arms against the mighty Persian Empire, ruled by Darius III. After that point, the whole series is the exaggerated, sometimes inaccurate account of how the boy King took over the Kingdom of Persia, cornering the King of Kings to a disgraceful death. Alongside, we get to know about the ongoing excavations being undertaken by Greek archaeologist Calliope Limneos-Papakosta in Alexandria, Egypt, the city that Alexander the Great founded.
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The biggest issue that can be seen in the series is how the glorious words of the experts don’t really match the fictional dramatisation of the events. The experts emphasized certain details & events, explaining them in the best way possible. But when they try to recreate it on the screen, the details and emphasis on certain things go away. The idea of Alexander in their mind and the actors’ minds is quite different. And the result is a mix match of things that doesn’t feel accurate enough and mind you, it isn’t.
It’s the general theme of all Netflix documentaries where they often alter the narrative to make it dramatic/entertaining instead of sticking to the core facts. For example, there are mentions of Hephaestion being Alexander’s lover but there isn’t any credible, direct evidence linking them romantically or sexually. But in the drama, Hephaestion almost acts like a lovesick/jealous twink that takes every word and action by Alexander, too emotionally.
The concurrent cut between the drama part & expert interviews often breaks the seamless flow, added to that is a heavily dramatic narration by presumably a woman dressed as a temple priestess. The creators should have shown the drama with the background voices of the experts, providing extra details about certain events. Or they should have just used the priestess narrator to chime in her dramatic voice to provide information. Also, there isn’t much to know about the excavation site in Alexandria to come back to every episode. Even if they summarised it in a 10-15 minute segment, it would have sufficed.
Overall, one should consider it a drama series with no expectation of everything being true. It is entertaining to watch if you enjoy historical content and if anything, there will be some hilarious moments owing to the inaccuracies and stern acting.
Rating: 2.5/5
Alexander The Making of a God is available to watch on Netflix.
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