The Haunting of Bly Manor 2020

Repetition is the mother of learning they say. But repetitiveness of Bly manor, well that is a new level. First: we have here few actors from Hill House which is not bad since I am used to this in American Horror Story. Problem is that in this show I didn't like any of these characters. I really like Victoria Pedretti but as Dani, hell no. Dani was damaged and broken person and I'm not talking about her soul. I'm talking about her weird talking, walking and running like she was 10 years in coma and when she woke up she forgot how to do these things. Second: there are repeating scenes. I understand it was kinda necessary but I'm not talking about one scene which appeared two-three times. There was few of them and sometimes it felt like I have seen this at least 20 times.... it started to be so annoying. Third: for example "perfectly splendid" or sentence "She would sleep.. she would wake... she would walk..." I have heard this so many times that I was telling to myself "ok I hope that’s the last time she’s going to say it..." and then she smacked this sentence in to my face AGAIN. We get it! Move on! It was just too much.
Music was great and creepy dark atmosphere too even Bly Manor wasn’t that scary as Hill House. Dialogues, again, too long and boring sometimes. I still hoped for really good ending so it will keep my mind busy when I will finish these series but it didn't happen. Also it wasn't that hard to figure out what was going on. Not saying that I knew everything but too many ghost clichés in here, so you can be one step ahead.

Apart from some actors in common and the fact that it takes places in a haunted house, there is very little in common with Hill House. Almost all its string points disappeared.

What was good in Hill House ?

1⃣ The original storytelling, with the two time periods and mostly character centric episodes.
This time we have a story told by a narrator, inserted into a wedding rehearsal evening. The link between this and the story itself is almost irrelevant, and barely makes sense, mostly because the characters involved do not realize we're talking about them despite a multitude of elements, and because when you see who the narrator is, she actually would have been privy to a tenth of what happened, and there is no way she could have known most of it.
We still have two time periods, but it's just because the characters involved in the past one are dead, and it was just a few months before.
The character centric episodes are mostly abandoned too.

2⃣ The complex character building.
This time it's very basic. Dani and Henry get a flashback episode backstory. Jamie gets a very long and annoying monologue. Owen has a mother. Hannah likes Owen. Peter gets a 2 minute memory. That's it.

However a good point compared to Hill House, there is also a ghost back story. (Which the narrator couls absolutely not have known, not the part when Viola was alive, even less the part when she was dead.) BUT, it takes a full episode for something that should have been done in half. It ends up being a lot more annoying than useful.

3⃣ The good horror balance.
Well this time apart from Viola's 2 intervention, that is not really horror. There is some haunting and possession (by Peter and Rebecca), some creepy dolls and doll house at the very beginning, but that's all. In Hill House the relatively low horror content was not important because the story and characters were great, here it's more of an issue.

4⃣ The mix between real supernatural and character's delusions.
This time we still have that, but what worked beautifully in Hill House is mostly disappointing here.
Henry's evil twin ghost was brilliantly absent in the end. This probably means it was just an alcohol induced internal demon, but really what was the point of introducing this concept so late to make nothing of it ?
On the opposite hand, Dani's ghost, which seems to be only in her head too, as it never interacts with anybody she just sees it seems to be a major plot in the beginning, and is very quickly abandoned for nothing. Such a shame.

5⃣ Some very original ideas.
At least there are some too here.

Like said earlier, the ghost background story episode that was missing in Hill House is done here. Though it's a bit slow and long.

Hannah's episode has a good concept and narrative structure, BUT, like the viola one, it should have been made shorter. Still, its conclusion, ending at the very moment Dani arrives on the ground, showing she was distracted because she literally died, became a ghost, and forgot about it seconds ago, great.

There is an actual explanation (whether you like it or not) of why people that die in the house stay trapped there. Which is usually missing from every movie/show using the concept. I'm looking at you AHS season 1 and 5.

Same as Hill House, the background ghosts are present, sometimes less in the background. But same as Hill House, apart from Viola they are basically irrelevant.

The ghosts, or the possessed, getting tucked away in memories is a good concept that gives good scenes between dream and flashbacks and introspection.

Now independently from the comparison to Hill House.

A strong point was, surprisingly, the children. Flora is a perfect mix of cute and weird and annoying. While Miles is wonderfully creepy in all the scenes he acts much older than his age.

Still there are a lot more problems.

Shouldn't there be a lot more ghosts ? Viola didn't kill that many, and centuries passed between her and the Wingraves. It even was a plague treatment center, lots of people must have died here. And unless the manor was left empty for generations, nobody else was killed or saw her or any of the other ghosts during all this time ?

What ghosts can and can't do is pretty inconsistent. Hannah clearly interacts with objects and people at some points. What Peter learned from other ghosts, where does it come from. We've pretty much seen that the other ghosts have forgotten even themselves and can't communicate. What is used for ghosts to possess someone, is also used at the end to force a Viola to drop what she was doing and possess Dani ??

The Dani + Jamie relationship is hinted very strongly at the very beginning. Then is barely given any screen time until it's the only thing left in the last 2/3 of the last episode. Who cares by then ?

And so the last episode is very bad. Giving a pretty poor conclusion to a cliffhanger scene that we've been shown no less than 4 times by then ! Then we switch to a never-ending almost unrelated epilogue that could have been done in 2 minutes.

Overall the slowness and length of things is a constant. Even for the good parts, they last and last and last way longer than they should. Hannah's episode. Viola's one. Peter convincing the children. Jamie's monologue. The epilogue. Just to cite those where you're actually checking the time during the scenes wondering when it will end.

Hill house was extraordinary with a mildly disappointing conclusion. Bly manor was lukewarm with some good points but also a lot of too long and too slow moments (or whole episodes) until a shit ending.