Black Doves

Helmed by Kiera Knightley and Ben Whishaw, this show was always going to be a success. Both actors gave very entertaining, and often very comedic, performances! Whishaw in particular is absolutely brilliant at conveying every emotion possible with just his eyes alone. He is incredibly talented, and drew out more than a few chuckles with his iconic line deliveries. Whishaw and Knightley worked brilliantly together and each scene they shared was fantastic. Other notable performances included Sarah Lancashire, Omari Douglas and Ella Lily Hyland. For a spy-thriller to be effective you need a suitable mystery at the heart. Black Doves has that in abundance, with the mystery and intrigue being set up and established immediately. It was a relief to see this upheld and maintained throughout the entire series, with only a few small hiccups along the way. The action scenes, of which there are plenty, were all very dramatic and exciting. I do wish they had a couple more big-scale set pieces but I felt very satisfied with the show as it was. I did find that the tangled story web in Black Doves got a little complicated to follow at times throughout the season. I watched the whole season over 2 days so everything was fresh in my mind, though I still struggled once or twice to remember who was who, or keep up with what was happening. Unfortunately, Black Doves does also fall into the cliche spy tropes trap. A few examples being: spy who falls in love so puts their mission in jeopardy, hitman has a moral complex and a female honeypot agent to name a few. Yet, the show is still thoroughly enjoyable and still felt fresh and exciting enough that I was never bored.

The story got plotholes but they manage to patch it up pretty well along the way. It's not super serious and they try to cram all existing genres into it but still it works out pretty well in the end. I'd say that good acting saves this show for me though. You should not expect a serious spy thriller though as this is more action-comedy with some drama (and other genres) thrown in once in a while.

Starts really well, with a strong cast that bounce off each other and a script and story that's both funny and compelling. But then, just like most British thrillers of recent years, the final few episodes become increasingly nonsensical and convoluted. 8 for episodes 1-4, but sadly a 3 for the last 2.

Knightley is so emaciated, she looks masculine, like a trans woman. Whishaw is such a wisp, he couldn't lift a dime from the kitchen floor. Why do all actors look like homeless addicts? Who killed glamour? I miss it. As always, Netflix meets all of its DEI quotas in this production. The plot is only somewhat intriguing. There are so many other shows with similar plot lines, but done much better. The dialogue is occasionally witty. All in all, if you're snowed in with nothing else to do, it's watchable.

More woke BS from Netflix. Derivative, predictable, and boring. But you cannot really mass produce pearls of cinematography, so we are left with this soapy, prolonged third grade melodrama.