User Reviews

I started watching Esaret episode 48 and was hooked. Orhun (Cenk Torah) and Hira (Mahassine Merabet) have done an outstanding job portraying this couples complicated journey to find love. If you are new to the series start at 48 and then go back and watch the beginning. You'll see Hira as a survivor, a person who gives forgiveness can still show kindness even though her life was full of hardship. Orhun will show you a dark side, and then he breaks the chains of growing up in a harsh and loveless family. Each are broken in their on way, but together those pieces start to fall in place for a love can conquer all relationship. What is beautiful is Orhun's need to protect and bring love and happiness back into Hira's life. Hira shows Orhun what love is.

After so many short lived boring titles of Turkish television, a new dynamic series "Esaret" comes along. Good story line, great actors. Unforgettable chemistry between Hira and Orhun. I just love the show. I wish directors would continue to season 2 maybe concentrating less on Mariam and Kenan and more on Orhun and his wife. Their journey together and their deep love for each other could have been exploited further with the potential to turn Esaret to the best show on tv.

Turkish programs are shown and are very popular all over the world with viewers outside of Turkey loving the series. This is definitely worth watching !!!

First of all, the actors are great but I have a high standard for dramas that I watch and I am fast to drop anything, that does not reach this standard. I dropped this for many reasons...

First: the abuse and torture.

If you consider watching this, you should be aware, that this drama practically contains nothing but abuse towards women. In every single episode (!) - 32 so far.

Trigger warning: there are two on screen near rape scenes. There are scenes, where the male lead threatens to kill the female lead.

In one episode she falls into a pool - she can not swim - and he watches her fight for her live and pulls her out only, when she is about to die. The female lead (FL) actually begs him to kill her at one point. He tells her, that he will torture her by day and her nightmares will torture her at night and that is why he keeps her alive until he is satisfied and then.... And YES, he really tortures her! There is physical abuse and there is mental abuse - degrading (a lot!!!), intimidating... The FL is traumatized, she is terrified, she cries permanently, she avoids his eyes - really, dear Esaret team, do you REALLY intend to sell me a love story coming out of this??? No way. There is no way, that I would ever believe, that the FL actually falls in love with the man, that abuses and tortures her for 32 episodes now. AND he is not the only one, there are other toxic characters around the FL. This drama is a circle of toxicity at an intensity, that I do not want to watch.

Second: I like "my" male leads (ML) to be intelligent - this one is not. He has proof, that the FL is innocent but decides to pause the video at the same point every single time! He says, he has it memorized, every single frame - but he only watches two minutes of the five minutes long video where the three minutes he does not watch proof the FLs innocence - well, isn´t that really illogical!?!

So based on this, we come to the third point and that is: I like a good skript, a logical storyline.

As the whole story is based on the revenge, that is based on the video, that the ML does not watch completely, the whole plot is worthless and could have been resolved in one episode. Not good, not entertaining, no depth...not my cup of tea.

Fourth: This is dragged out to the point of boredom. The story does not go anywhere. There is only abuse and degrading and intimidating and crying every single episode, without going forward.

There are too many, too good turkish dramas to waste my time with this one. Dropped.

It's never romantic to fall in love with your abuser.

I understand the outrage, the anger of a man who wants to punish his twin's killer. I even understand the violent acts because he's angry. But I will never understand a woman falling in love with someone who tortured her, then withheld the truth that she was innocent, regardless of his good intentions. It's stupid writing, sorry.

The one thing I do not understand about Turkish series is the miscommunication between the lead characters. Why can't issues be discussed? The secrets are always the cause of conflict. When you've seen it in practically every Turkish series, it becomes tiresome. You keep watching because the actors are great, and the production values are flawless, but the stories fail when it's always an arranged marriage, secrets causing conflict, and a parade of third parties thrown in to upset the apple cart.

Added to this the slooooooow burn before the lead characters admit their feelings to each other. I am on episode 145 and at this point, the male and female lead still have not revealed their feelings for each other. You probably ask why I bothered to reach this far...I skipped a lot of episodes because I was tired of waiting.

Honestly the 4 stars is just for the fact that the main female lead (Hira) is beautiful and her outfit choices in the latter episodes really enhance her beauty (as shallow as that sounds) and the plot didnt sound too bad. I can never truly get into shows where the conflict takes 100 episodes, as it is typical of this writer to do before a simple misunderstanding is cleared up!!! Omg I can not see the logic between this man not finding out the truth 30 episodes in!! He literally has proof that he has not yet thoroughly investigated!!! I mean I get its painful but you're telling me that someone kills your sister, you watch the video several times but PAUSE before even finishing it -EVERY SINGLE TIME, just kill her then where do you get the energy for so much torture and at the same time you unnecessarily marry her like what the hell? And then they make the FL so damn timid!!! You escaped and came back and took every single punishment and as someone said Turkish series like this one forbid kissing rightttt, but they throw a woman in a grave, have her sleep on the cold floor, forced to marry a man who humiliates her every second,cause her all sorts of emotional distress - whats up with the violence??? And then she's supposed to love him eventually. Okay so she willl likely develop Stockholm syndrome but the main male lead himself rarely loosens up (what is there to love?) -shes a timid female who already displays positive characteristics and you're telling me you're cold enough to not even question things????. No lie I would like to see how it plays out but I would have to skip atleast 70 episodes. Because thats how long before the truth reveals itself. (Unless it gets cancelled ofc). Shows like these need to stop.

Season 2: Boooooooring. The same dialogue over and over and over...16 episodes already. I'm done.

I initially didn't want to watch this series, but once I started, I couldn't stop.

The casting is excellent, as well as the acting and directing. Story plots are interesting with two consecutive storylines that will become intertwined later, I suspect.

Too many things are happening to the same characters. It's not realistic. Some wins to offset the constant losses, would be nice. The bad guys just keeps winning...there should be a balance or otherwise people lose interest.

Oh, and please let the characters shower and not walk in the same clothes for a week. Hira was in the same clothes when she came back when Ali was ill (already for 2 days, then another 3/4 days with Ali, before a change of clothes)...didn't eat and slept on the floor- and left his room only to go to the kitchen...no shower...I could smell her. Same with Kenan and Meryam. Even the make-up and hair is worse in later episodes and not as good as in the beginning. That's why, shows shouldn't actually continue for so long...attention to detail wanes.

Season 2 looks like it's just a continuation of Hira abuse. How can Orhun in his right mind tell Hira she is save in the house where his mother tried to kill her? Is he really that daft or uncaring? He can't even hug Hira when she hugs him and needs comfort. Not sure I'm into season 2.