Halfway through the first episode and we have a genius lesbian who is telling her male coworker how to finish his game of Go, a brown mother who is telling her doctor that she can perform operations where she likes because she went Harvard Med so he better stay in his lane. We have a black female cop teaching her old male colleague how to duck. To put icing on the knuckle sandwich we have some red-neck criminal white men playing pool behind a very big confederate flag one scene after another white man complains about how there's more crime nowadays. I can tell where I'm not wanted. Here's the zero out of ten you begged for you rotten misandrist ****. I hope you all loose your jobs ASAP.
After a slightly ponderous start, this series turns into the best Star Wars production to date, by a country mile. It makes me so happy to write that after all the terrible Star Wars that has been made. I can't imagine why this show hasn't been seen by every adult on earth apart from the fact that it's on Disney plus and everyone knew before it came out that Disney can't make Star Wars. . . Where the heck were these writers and creators when the other shows and movies were getting destroyed?!?! amazing show, amazing cast, some of the best acting in cinema history. I'm stunned. Very pleased and very stunned. Disney would be insane to make more Star Wars like the bad instead of more like this in the future. I just hope it can go forward without the "modernization"s. And I REALLY hope the people in production get the recognition, promotions and additional jobs they deserve.
In minute 15 a 422 year old captain, who has presided over countless trials, starvation, mass death and genocide says that she had to quit Starfleet because she had to separate a child from their parent. If you can't see why this show is simply too stupid to exist, then maybe you'll enjoy it. I had to turn it off 15 minutes in and will never turn it back on. Shocking. Truly shocking.
It's really strange to me that real people are enjoying this. . . Isn't the rage at our current world and "the patriarchy" a turn-off to more people? I have to believe many of these positive marks are fake? It's 2026. . . I thought this garbage was supposed to be dying off? ? ? Studios this far behind deserve to go out of business. . . Fire the activists for crying out loud. We are literally crying out loud here. Fallout gets added to the mass grave of dei ips. RIP
They learned a lot from season one. This is far far better and even exceeds the source material in places and ways. Great job to all involved. More please. Ignore the haters who lament the season ending being soft. They are stuck in yesterday. Write a good story. Completely ignore "seasons". Bravo
First Episode Review only:
This Episode offered very little to invest in or care about. All we know about the narrator/ protagonist is that she says her ancestors have fallen into ill repute, giving her motive to strike out to acquire power. It comes in the form of an introductory exposition dump. We then get a sequence about her becoming the mother superior and more exposition about the bene geserit eugenic program we already know about from the novels and movies.
The writing hovers between barely serviceable and dog poo throughout. Empty platitudes, there's a modern " he's only a man " dog whistle in there as well a cringy girl power montage. This show and the bene geserit deserved much better. They aren't scary here, they seem quibbley, shallow, the trainees talk like teens. It feels like a problem of characters not being able to be smarter than their writers. The writers for this show HAD to be actual geniuses. . . they are not. At least not the ones writing the dialogue and story beats. The visual side of things were generally better though the show fell short even there, particularly in a night club scene that was simply. . .very poorly done - about the quality you'd expect from a sci fi original. The performance side of things were much better. An excellent child's performance was handed in and our favorite viking is back at his ticking and twitching. The protagonist is played very well in her younger version but the old one stood out to me as the weakest performance of the show. Hard to tell with such flat writing but she didn't seem to bring anything vital and wasn't believable as a Machiavellian autocrat. I couldn't help but feel her supporting actor was a better mother superior of Harkonen, and she was supposed to be the nice one. One party scene in a royal hall stood out as being original, tense and well executed. It was definitely the unintentional high point of the show. The climax as intended came off as frustratingly open ended and world breaking. It reeked of desperation. I hope for HBOs sake they didn't already film a second season. I hope more that the show proves me wrong. As for the first episode. . . not looking good at all. Fingers crossed the incompetent work was contained to the premiere though. . . hard to imagine why they'd do that.
So. . . I'm turned off by political allegory and absolutely allergic to woke allegory in media. So believe me when I say that if you are seeing woke allegory in this show you may want to check and make sure you're not the brainwashed one. This show features excellent storytelling, excellent character driven narratives, it remains wholly devoted to it's internal logics. In short, it's not woke propaganda, its genuinely good storytelling. The writers may not share your values but they are trying to entertain you first. There aren't any MEANINGFUL identity swaps or bait and switches (as of episode 3). A family in Boston can believably be of any mix of races. This isn't middle earth. It's 1995 or whatever Boston. It doesn't matter if his wife was White or Asian or Black. The white characters and male characters aren't all bad here. Men are physically stronger than women in this show. The girl lead does a fantastic job and looks like a real person. She's not "ugly" at all she's talented as hell - especially for a young actor. I'm not seeing woke allegory. What I'm seeing here, in the negs, is people who are oversensitive (understandably) about being preached too by leftist virtue signaling. Please let's agree that this show is how leftist writers SHOULD be writing. They're going to be left leaning, inclusive etc. But this team is putting the story first second and third . Whether you agree with their views we should be able to agree that great art is great art. Episode 3 WAS excellent by any sane measure. If you don't see that then I'm afraid you may have become woke's opposite evil. Why was it bad? If you think it was bad simply because the characters were gay then you are in the wrong. Woke views are bad when they lead to woke allegory which is bad WHEN ITS BAD - whenever it comes before storytelling. It doesn't here. There's no preaching. Nobody marginalizes victimizes or shames the men. There's no warping of reality or history to magnify their repression. They could be a straight couple just as easily and the episode would have worked fine. So the hate just grinds me a bit. I'm usually on the skeptical side but this was great work and top tier entertainment. The only thing keeping this show from being a ten is that zombie stuff feels tired. Even if it's caused by mushrooms. Otherwise perfect show.
This show was massively overhyped. People were saying it was amazing way too early. Itlost me completely during the first major battle scene (which was weirdly promoted as being awesome by shills). The main character ambushes an entire army which was winning a war by hiding in a cave. If that sentence sound wildly stupid to you then don't watch the show. If that battle description doesn't turn you off, let me go on. There is simply not enough depth for the show to hold together. In game of thrones, incest was a minor side note, it was the impotice for a cliffhanger. In this show it is the central focus of 20 minutes of intrigue. It's shallow trash.
No martial arts in Star Wars ever again please. And before you brain fart fencing with lazer swords is not action movie martial arts. All the bad lazer sword fights are inspired by those mouth breathers, the good ones aren't. No cyber punk in Star Wars. Star Wars begins with a simple premise. "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away". Above all else it shouldn't care about modern earthly issues or cultures or movie genres. These little inclusions of feels erode away at the foundations of what makes this universe cool and destroys this show. Utterly.
Also the art direction is stunningly bad . Just look at how much better the animatic paintings look than the photography. Finally, The show fails to establish ANY scope or consequnce so it just feels pointless and cheesy. Bad scrpt is to blame there. Being cool REQUIRES stakes. To put that in perspective, weapons seem to make things hurt LESS in this show as often as more. It's just dumb around.
It's really weird this got made. It seems to dwell for a good portion of the season on a joke that it took wall-e ten minutes to make ten years ago. "idiocracy crony capitalism may wind up landing ignorant people in space ships that they don't understand how to fly. The rich mostly play at being productive while the real heroes slave away in obscurity." The problem with these jokes is that they wouldn't be funny even if they were accurate enough to resonate. Nobody interested in science fiction isn't aware of programs like space x. All the characters that you're supposed to take for granted have serious existential problems. . as in I've never met or seen any version of them in existence. A captain who hasn't worked hard for their job, a space program owner who doesn't understand engineering, a nihilists who isn't in high school, crew that is only show, people who think American accents are more authoritative than British accents (never existed just hasn't I'm American we love British accents a lot and always have they specifically sound authoritative) Ironically the diverse engineering team is by far the most believable part of the show - which somehow seems to be thematically problematic since they're clearly meant to be a narrative flip except they're already the most believable part and it's still now - whereas the show is set in the future, where it will presumably be more diverse? It's all a bit sadly angry ignorant college cry. If it's just meant as a bit of funny fun then the themes shouldn't be allegorical - or at least it should be allegory that is somewhat reflective of reality on any level. I understand that some people may find the allegories compelling. . . that's sad for them I guess. I hope they can do good things despite misunderstanding reality so deeply. People often do. There are millions of little misunderstandings about real life and accidentally self defeating loop holes throughout. For example the "real engineering team" works in dirty disorganized spaces and don't appear to shower even though nobody is making them. This is not only a poor reflection of the actual behavior of ship crews but seems to insult the people that are supposed to be the heroes. It's hideous mistreatment is probably the funniest part of the show. Icing on the poo pie is that the musical score is for some other show entirely. It's just face spankingly bad. Over and over. Also it's a space show that trashes the only astronaut character. . . huh? There's plenty of funny things to do with an astronaut character but they make fun of him mainly for being a nerd. he's not cool hahaha, nobody will have sex with him hahaha . . in a sci-fi. . it's baffling. Maybe next time hire writers who are curious about meaning instead of children who think they have answers. Also having writers who like the source material would be smart.
I turned it off in twenty minutes. Because the main characters:
1. scoff at the invocation of supernatural influences from others while manifesting supernatural abilities themselves.
2. Are in possession of technology which could save untold millions but run an orphanage. 3. Fight like ninjas. This show is flat too stupid for me. I give it two points for production value.
I gave season 1 a 6 which, in hindsight, was generous. I know this now because i expected season 2 to be awful. . And yup. Episode one doubled down on all the worst parts from the first season. Stupid fight scenes, stupid motivations masquerading as deep. Thin world building. Trying to be cool like preteens. It comes off as awkward and painfully shallow. Screw this train wreck. This is coming from a lover of sci fi. I know its silly but im sad this show is so bad. I feel like the budget that should have been targeted towards me was aimed at morons who think sword fights are cool. Like i got lumped with them. I kind of hate whoever made these decisions. I still have the expanse.
Huminty's elite crew of astronauts have members who don't know what a cerebral cortex is. They think that a planet in the "goldie locks zone" is likely to have edible plants. They are so immature that they fight to the death over their egos, first chance they get. Or the everyone involved with this project is dumb AF. I hope they dont vote. This show is a dumpster fire.
I immediately stopped watching this in the second episode when one of the characters ran onto the bridge, not really in an emergency situation, still wearing sickbay scrubs and told the pilot that she needed to, "Go in a circular orbit. Like do a donut in a space ship", adding, "it'll be awesome".
That should be all you need to know about this dumpster fire of a show. If you're dumb enough to not understand why that line is problematic, maybe you can get a job writing for Star Trek: Discovery.
There is a lot to love in this show and it gave me great hope that people are ready to make great fresh science fiction again. My hope started to fade when I began to understand that they were going for a "noir detective" genre vibe instead of a fresh, unique perspective. My hopes faded further when I began seeing samurai swords in the background behind Asian people 350 years in the future. Beautiful women are great and sex can be an important story element, things here got inappropriately sexual though (inappropriate to the setting/story). A few of the episodes became "porny" and juvenile. I stopped watching when (mild spoiler alert?) a naked Asian ninja woman tried to murder the female lead with a sword, ninja style, using several clones. A few moments before the scene I was wondering why anyone would design a room the way the clone facility was designed. As the fight scene progressed it became apparent that the room was designed that way so that naked ninja chicks could break through glass walls and jump dramatically down to ground level, landing in that way ninjas land, complete with the slow head raise. Totally moronic. Maybe I'm being nit picky. Maybe I've become accustomed to better, smarter story telling. For creators who care: there are smart people who like sci-fi out here waiting. Also - As a general rule for everyone - 90s style martial arts is a no-go if you aren't running a comedy show. Simple as that. There are people who will disagree with this, but please analyse the numbers if you don't believe me. Once you feature choreographed looking fighting, everyone of average or above intelligence is taken out of the drama completely. So, ya, I hope someone who funds this crap reads that. . .
I found this to be an excellent show. Easily the best superhero themed TV series to date and among the best superhero anything to date. If you like your superhero stuff, you can't go wrong. Being a fantasy piece, it's not going to be for everyone. So if you can't suspend your disbelief enough to forgive that the bad guys don't just shoot the unarmed good guys then you'll be disappointed. That acting is fantastic - best villain since the Dark Knight's Joker- and the writing is above par. Stylistically the show doesn't disappoint by offering a nice array of mostly colorful nighttime scenes and realistic day-time scenes. There is no annoying plastic aesthetic that is the ruination of so many similar attempts (Agents of SHIELD). Environments are dirty and real-looking. For the creators: I have suggestion to improve the show drastically. The fight scenes need less kung-fu/WWF and more bare-knuckle-boxing. Real fights NEVER involve people getting tired and then coming back with surprise second winds a la WWF. Several of the ridiculously long fight scenes had me either laughing or getting angry at their stupidity. The style simply clashes with the rest of the show. I bet the low bar there actually excludes more viewers than it entices. Editing every fight scene down to two or three punches would wildly improve the entire show and probably broaden the target market of the show to include a much wider fan base. Spoiler: how much better would it have been for DD to just light that ninja on fire in the first six seconds of their engagement? (A - WAY better) The latest generation of superhero movies seem to have figured this out long ago (see Batman, Avengers (Hulk v Loki), etc. as have all unrelated top-flight productions since about the early 2000s. Superhero genre fans don't need the low -IQ fight scenes and no matter how long you make them WWF fans won't be into the otherwise dramatic style. Put another way: DD is a crazy great fighter. Taken for granted. He displays, relative to other good-guys, little mercy because that's the property's brand (Devil). Okay. If he fights a gangbanger he'll drop them in a strike or two, maybe breaking some bones in the process. We already know he'll win. So why is he STILL fighting this guy? It's just bad. so.... stop it for season two. Please? Just fire the fight choreographer and don't hire another one. I'll love it more, the action junkies will still love it (because the action will probably get more visceral) and my girlfriend will stop having to pretend to like it. I do hope my message to the creators doesn't dissuade you from watching and loving this show. Just get popcorn or a beer when the fight choreographer takes the camera and you'll be fine. Unless you're a WWF fan. I suppose you guys can fast forward to the violent parts. Weirdos.
I felt this show started out pretty well - especially considering the very oft-done premise. The overarching plot itself is BETTER than TWD. Remembering back to the first episode of TWD - which was a bad version of "28 Days Later" - "Z Nation" starts out pretty strongly. The atmosphere was unique as well. We were calling it a "silly and macho" version of TWD. That is until E07, when the show becomes - all at once - completely unwatchable. Any sense of realism - even magical realism - devolves into video-game surrealism seemingly overnight. There are repeating dream sequences, Tyler Durden friends and GLOWING zombies (because radioactive things glow in the minds of twelve year old boys) Get the F@#$ out of here. Never come back.
The critic rating of this show is sinful and exposes a deep divide between viewers and critics. If you don't like sci-fi because it's sci-fi, then you won't like this show. Otherwise read on. It starts out a bit shaky and plastic, but by mid season is in full stride and it's charm begins to shine through. It doesn't break any real new ground in terms of science fiction lore - but not everyone can be Greg Bear - and honestly, mass consumption may not be ready for ground breaking sci-fi (take the end of A.I. for example - which left most of the audience confused or angry because they thought aliens came). Also, at the end of the day, good sci-fi knows that it's only time that it's changing - the rest, the people and the drama, is the same. There are some mistakes made - for example one episode centers around bionic transplants while another features an organic printer . . . (they make some weak mention of organs not being printable. . but seriously we're already printing organs) . The script is well put together in terms of character depth and dialogue. The mood is light and bright. the over-all experience makes you feel good without being too optimistic. I personally appreciate that the writers seem to be staying clear of any overt messages and are taking a more altruistic approach. If you're a fan of sci-fi you know that this is difficult and should be applauded. Finally - my gripes: 1. Please get the episodes to be serialized. 2. Please get off of the "case by case" formula. You've got a smart audience - use it. 3. Please stop the CSI plastic aesthetic. The future will look like people live there. There need to be more props, more clutter and more to look at on the sets. Cops are pigs - or rather - they're very busy and underfunded. In other words, this show mixed with "The Killing" would be my favorite thing ever. One last note to a previous reviewer - people will be using ballistic weapons for a very long time. This show does a very good job of accurately dating the tech - a very difficult thing to do - if you can accept mass produced androids with souls as being just 30 years out that is.
House of Cards accomplishes a lot with it's relatively small cast. Staying focused on five or six characters at a time it manages to deliver the scope of a nation. You can feel the heaving of the sentiments of millions pushing and hurtling the plot lines forward. There's a shade of hopelessness hanging about the set (Washington and the Fed) that will certainly ring true with the show's intended audience mainly youngish tech savvy interneters (consequently disillusioned). For everyone else there is cable television and football.
This show takes everything that humans have learned about good storytelling and film making then adds to it. You DON"T have to be a geek to love it - the characters are real and unique. You DON"T have to be a man to love it - it is not hyper violent - there are swords and armies but most of the gore is shown briefly or skipped. Neither is there just eye candy for men(like bay watch). There is sex and there are pretty characters, but they are realistically depicted (considering context) and aren't glossed over into teeny boy softcore (as some errant critics would lead you to believe. You DON"T have to be super-smart to love it (though it does ask more of the viewer than most shows - a good thing for 90% of us). You DO have to start at the beginning - it's a movie in the fifteenth hour. You DO have to remember what happened last episode. You DO have to be thick skinned - some terrible things are portrayed and if you take what you watch personally or are easily offended then the story is simply not for you. For most people this show will be one of the best things they'e ever seen. It is for me.
