White Mirror

The Romanoffs follows the heirs to Russian royalty.

- Matt Zoller Seitz

THE LIGHT, SWEET TONE of The Romanoffs is perfume covering the stench of cultural rot. Matthew Weiner’s first TV project since Mad Men is another portrait of white people in decline, exuding a malaise that often mingles with guilt over wanting more when they already have plenty. The title refers to the Romanov clan, one of the driving forces in Russian history until the Russian civil war, when the recently dethroned czar and his family were killed by Bolsheviks in 1918. The descendants are defined and yet not defined by their lineage.

As overseen by Weiner, who wrote or co-wrote many episodes and directed them all, The Romanoffs is an anthology series, with each installment the length of a short theatrical feature. There are no ongoing characters or plotlines carrying you through the first season. The only obvious connective tissue is the Romanov family itself, and, in a more general sense, the idea of being descended from finer people, royals forced to live among commoners. The family name doesn’t explicitly equal the idea of “whiteness” here, but the way the characters invoke it invites the association. No matter what misfortune befalls them, they can console themselves that their ancestors were royals; that they ultimately deserve the best life offers; and that the right to rule still runs in their veins, even though their kingdom fell a century ago.