Lioness

The Zoe Saldaña-led spy thriller’s sophomore run is fantastic, and stands as one of the year’s best TV shows.

It’s too early to say where ‘Lioness’ will land, but it’s a promising beginning, arguably more absorbing than any of these recent shows, and hell, we’ll take that roar as long as it lasts.

Unlike “1923,” which moseyed at a glacial pace, director John Hillcoat keeps “Lioness” moving apace. It also helped that the first episode is a brisk 41 minutes, avoiding the bloat that mars too many streaming dramas these days.

The show is good at what it does. The military sequences are well directed, the camaraderie of the team is well drawn, and each episode leaves you keen to see what happens next. It’s an effective action thriller, albeit one that only goes skin deep – there is none of Homeland’s complexity and the dialogue is cheesy in a Top Gun sort of way.

It's clear that Sheridan knows how to write engaging, addictive drama. With "Lioness," he's trying to do too many things at once for any one of them to be successful.

There are points where it feels reminiscent of Homeland – but without the intrigue of that show’s initial premise (“Is Damian Lewis a terrorist?”). It’s a double-life drama that – frankly – needs to get a life.

It is perhaps predictable that the Sheridan take on pop feminism would weaponize women’s liberation in service of the military industrial complex. After all, that rhetorical sleight of hand is as much a cliché as the rest of “Lioness,” which shows the strain of a single writer cranking out scripts for each of his half-dozen shows on air. “Lioness” may be a first for its creator in some respects, but in others, it’s more of the same.

Loved it. Saldana, Kidman & Michael Kelly are fantastic. Edge of seat thriller. Can’t wait for season 2.

Even though Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman are the stars, they play bosses of the woman doing the work (Laysla De Oliveira). She's a new recruit to the special secret ops group and her mission is to befriend the daughter of a wealthy funder for terrorists. Her training and subsequent involvement forms the crux of the story with the other 2 women confronting the political and logistical consequences. Creator Taylor Sheridan has placed the emphasis on female characters with their personal relationships adding an emotional connection, but the thrust is really about the covert ops. There are a few moments of tough physical encounters to maintain the action adjective, but the focus is on the mental challenges these characters face, so there's lots of Sheridan's spicy chatter punctuated by spurts of violence.

Season 1 was stunning, season 2 turned out to be a rehash with the same romance arc and everything. Also that battle in the final episode was awful, like Iron Eagle 2 awful. Whoever designed and choreographed that should never be allowed near military hardware on film again.

What started out promising drifted midway through and then ended very poorly. Zoe was superb. I thought her character was well written and acted. The other star power really pulled their weight too. But ultimately the show devolved into weak story telling, over acted characters, and unbelievable plot points. I knew halfway through it wouldn’t end well. Way too much drama devoted to side characters and backstory that was needless. I actually fast forwarded through most of that to just watch the operational parts. It’s truly sad because this show could have been so much better and really launched a new series. But with how this one played out I wouldn’t bother watching another.

This show aims itself at the male audience through military, weapons and special forces with a mission to inject feminist agenda that women are victims to sexual harassment/assault propaganda in a simple exchange **** story. If this was real life the main character would have no issue going through any of that.