The Abandons deploys its considerable advantages in service of something safely regurgitative, where characters’ emotions run only as deep as the dried-up banks of the Columbia River.
But the Duffer Brothers have created something, in the beleaguered town of Hawkins and its luckless citizenry, that is admirably immersive. The danger now is that the desire to give it a spectacular send-off will undermine those charming, emotional moments where Stranger Things delved into one of the great cinematic subjects: finding your place in the world as you exit childhood.
Pluribus is by no means bad. Seehorn is excellent, the premise is interesting, and Apple TV’s production work is as polished as ever. But it just isn’t gripping, feeling instead like a satire that’s unsure what, or who, it’s satirising.
It’s still bingeable in a way that feels purpose-built to scratch a mid-thirties brain. It’s just equally clear that the show, having arrived at its final act showdown, is wandering in the wilderness. Sometimes, you just need to have a bit more faith in your premise.
Lightweight, superficial, and a missed opportunity to interrogate our modern immigration concerns, Ten Pound Poms is, all the same, a burst of sun-soaked schmaltz.
aka Charlie Sheen is an exercise in damage control that revels in the destruction, only pulling back right at the edge of excess. It is – as Sheen himself would put it – a winning formula.
