“The Magnificent Century,” a Turkish-made soap opera depicting harum-scarum adventures in the imperial household of Suleyman, the eponymous Magnificent, reaches farther than the Ottoman Empire did in the mid-16th century. Its domains extend from France to the Ukraine, the Czech Republic to Japan, with 150 million viewers in its thrall. In Turkey, the series brings Wednesday nights to a halt, claiming one third of the country’s entire television audience.
Yet it faces one small pocket of resistance that could prove its undoing: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hates it.
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