The Ottoman / Kuruluş Osman: The Most Successful Start in History

It was the most anticipated series on Turkish television. Unprecedented resources have been invested in this project. The stakes were too high. Did The Ottoman / Kuruluş Osman live up to our hopes and expectations?

On Wednesday, November 20, Turkish viewers first met with the heroes of the new series The Ottoman / Kuruluş Osman which is the sequel of the most popular project of the last five years, the Resurrection Ertuğrul / Diriliş: Ertuğrul. This time the viewers will see the life of the founder of the Great Ottoman Empire and the first sultan of the newly created state Osman Gazi.

Producer Mehmet Bozdağ, who is also the main screenwriter of the project, did a tremendous work, recreating the historical era in great detail. And this is not surprising, because by education he is a historian and sociologist. However, at the same time, he is quite free to use historical material, well aware that the audience does not expect him to do a documentary film, but an interesting and exciting story. The unique combination of historical details, traditions and adventurism that you can find only in the books of Alexander Dumas turned the previous project of Bozdağ Resurrection Ertuğrul into an international phenomenon.

However, not everything is so simple in Turkish show business. Even the sequels of the biggest hits are often unsuccessful. Recall the Magnificent century. Kesem and its high-profile failure. Many fans rightly feared that Osman might repeat the fate of Kesem. The leading actor Burak Özçivit was causing the major concern. Many saw in him only the romantic Kemal from the series Endless Love / Kara Sevda and feared that he would not be able to become the real son of Ertuğrul Bey – the fearless and tough fighter who would create the empire.

Fortunately, all doubts turned out to be groundless. First, the audience noted the great acting of Burak, who clearly enjoys the character he plays. He is on a roll now. Magnificent shooting, battle scenes, beautiful and touching relationships in the family, intrigues and villainy of enemies – Ertuğrul’s fans were not disappointed, the sequel turned out to be quite worthy. Of course, this is not a romantic love story, this is the story of the creation of a state where there is no place for snotty sentiment and unnecessary romantic sighs. But in this story there is a lot of patriotism, traditions, religion, in general, all the things for which Ertuğrul, and now also Osman, is loved.

Rating of the first episode of The Ottoman / Kuruluş Osman was not just very high, that was actually expected after Ertuğrul’s success. It was simply the best. The best in the history of Turkish television. The show has never started right away from such high positions: 15.73% in total, 13.48% in AB and 16.17% in ABC. This means that the premiere of the series was watched by 12 million 900 thousand Turkish viewers. Immediately after the premiere, a re-show took place, which gathered another 3 million 300 thousand spectators. That is, out of 81 million Turkish citizens in just one day, The Ottoman was watched by 16 million 200 thousand persons. Such a start was not even for previous seasons of Ertuğrul. No one had such a start at all.

Of course, how successful the project will be, time will tell. However, The Ottoman has already gone down in history as the most successful start of the Turkish series ever. What will happen next we will know very soon.

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