Sooo, I started watching Porus (TV), an Indian series that aired in 2017/2018, available for free on YouTube. It's a story created from the Indian perspective, where Porus is the protagonist and Alexander the Great the main villain. Despite that, the series shows the Macedonian side as well, and it's not simply "one side is all good, the other all bad".
The show is 299 episodes (I know, I know!), and the version with English subtitles has the episodes put in videos 11 hours long. You can watch it here.
I only watched a few episodes at the moment I'm writing this post, and for now both Porus and Alexander's mothers are pregnant, so the main characters haven't appeared yet. It's⦠well, pretty entertaining to me, but also very much a soap opera most of the times LOL Basically, if you want something historically accurate, that's NOT the series I'd recommend. However, if you are curious about something from the Indian side where Alexander is the villain, or you're just easily entertained when it comes to ancient history, Alexander the Great and Porus, then I'd give it a chance! The few fight scenes I saw were ridiculous, but they used a lot of money for the setting.
Regarding possible Alexander/Hephaestion moments: I saw one clip out of context that was very shippy (not explicitly gay, but definitely homoerotic on purpose). That said, if Wikipedia is correct, apparently the second guy was not Hephaestion, but an original character like him that takes his place, because Hephaestion doesn't exist. I think the reason may be related to some spoilers I read⦠Without revealing too much, it looks like I'm not really going to like the developments there. BUT I also don't trust Wikipedia, so I'll have to see it by myself! Edit: never mind, I misunderstood that part. Hephaestion definitely exists as Hephaestion:
Another note: the few scenes I saw from the Macedonian side looked influenced by Oliver Stone's movie. That's not necessarily a bad thing to me, especially if we get homoerotic Alexander/totally-not-Hephaestion, but I admit that when I saw Philip and Olympias, I was hoping to see a different characterization for a change. I'm still at the start though, so we'll see!