For the first five episodes, Welcome to Derry fluctuates between dialogue-heavy scenes that incrementally further parallel mysteries (which we know must eventually lead to Pennywise in the sewers) and overwrought, traumatic backstories that force actors into a uniform state of skittishness and desperation.
What’s strange and ultimately damning about this adaptation is that, despite the broadly detailed but engaging roster of lawyer characters, there’s very little courtroom drama in the first half of the series, and instead quite a lot of kidnapping, murder, and extraneous conspiracy.
Of course, it’s impossible, to a frustrating degree, to judge if the Karl Alberg mysteries is a well-structured and formatted season of television because we were only allowed to see a single episode, and therefore we’re reluctant to recommend the series beyond this single entertaining hour of drama. If head writer and executive producer Ian Weir makes the series as actor-focused as the slight but charming first episode, then audiences who want to solve crimes and switch their brain off should be thrilled.
In the season’s latter half, the fantasy plot supersedes our character-focused frolicking and the frothy misadventure vibes of Time Bandits take a slight knock, but the show confidently regains its footing for a conclusion that sets up a prospective next season of adventure and inter-dimensional intrigue that, no matter how skeptical you initially felt, you’ll want to see where—or when—we end up next.
The Big Cigar is thoroughly entertaining, but rather than fully honoring this under-told piece of history, it feels like things have been manipulated into the form of a digestible six-episode miniseries.
While the first half is tighter than the second (with a bit of wheel spinning around the Episodes 5-7 period), thankfully we rise back up to full volume for a rousing finale that’s only marred by the usual streaming show faults (abysmal lighting during exciting and needed-to-be-seen action scenes). But despite the blemishes on Renegade Nell’s jacket, its charm wins out.
An inventive mix of sci-fi and paranoia, a winning opportunity for an underrated international actor, a thoughtful and imperfectly written drama, Constellation feels like the worst type of quality show. It’s good enough for a major streamer to mishandle.
The middle hours of Expats hit the most roadblocks—after a flashback second episode neatly and carefully laying down all the tension bubbling up in the first, the show spins wheels in too obvious ways, the lowest point being a fourth episode where all our characters are trapped in single locations and are forced to directly and ineffectively voice their trauma. It’s imperfections like these that chip away at Expats’ merits, giving us a worthy but imperfect next step in Wang’s career.
A Murder at the End of the World may not crack the universe open like The OA did, but it does signal something more exciting—-Marling and Batmanglij will keep on crafting gems for a long time to come.
