The pilot episode is just brilliant. Wipes the floor with the rest of new sci fi television. The vistas and scenic design may be the best since Lynch's Dune. Watch on the biggest screen you've got.
Due to shoddy Disney+ business practices, this film premiered in May 2023 and was then DELETED and made UNAVAILABLE only 7 weeks later! It can now no longer be seen legally anywhere! This is like Batgirl. Dumped for a tax write off. They do not value their own content--or your time!
A modest elderly couple are only dimly aware there's a nuclear war, and have no idea they're dying of radiation fallout.
Strong, fine performances by Faye Dunaway, Ken Howard and Dick Van Dyke. I prefer this version to the movie (1954) which is also terrific. Very worth collecting if you love live drama, but difficult to find. Taped live on a soundstage in '82 when Showtime was a baby.
To paraphrase from the movie blurb:
An ex-theater actor is given one more chance to star in a show. . .yet his alcoholism may prevent it from happening.
How far should a woman go... to redeem the man she loves?
This fairly obscure WW2 prisoner-of-war drama was a three season feast of exquisite characters and performances, if also a bit soapy and slow for today's audience. Grim white women in peril! Sorry, just joking. Actually that's a precursor of things to come, as human dignity sputters and dies from time to time in this extended semi-episodic story.
An Aussie & Brit co-production, it tells of the women in the Singapore internment camps throughout the war, captured by the Japanese and subjected to inhumane treatment for the war's duration. The first two seasons deal with life in the camps; the final season deals with the survivors' recovery and immediate aftermath. There's also a reunion movie which, like the series, is equal parts sensitive and brutal.
One or two movies have been made about these camps, one about a choir starring Glenn Close which was moving, if fully different in scope & intent. The series treatment of the Japanese camp administrators and the indigenous Singapore people is fairly dated--1980s BBC dated. An attempt is made to treat them with respect, but it only partially succeeds, so trigger warnings and things to talk about there. The show still deserves a remaster and republish on some service--currently there's just an old, out of print DVD set.
Arguably Stephanie Beacham's best work as part of an amazing ensemble. Ann Bell (minus the big hair) plays the central figure, a naive upper-class British mum, wife of a general, who often leads the captees and, like them all, goes through hell and back. At least the ones who live.
Would be rated R overall for grim themes, nudity and violence, typical episode might be more PG.
This seemingly impossible to find four episode show (1986) was amazing for its day. It's a bitter black comedy of a ugly wife scorned, who destroys the lives of her ex-husband and his new lover, the "perfect woman", so completely and outrageously that it's impossible to believe. Not for every taste. It's also very fun. Rosanne Barr & Meryl Streep immediately made a movie version that was just horribly bad, and some people watching this original mini-series might disagree with me and think the series is just as bad. It's an exaggerated fable. Both controversial and far too odd, it has completely disappeared (not even pirated anymore) -- except for a dreadful copy on youtube that no one has noticed. Watch or snag the copy there while you can.
A very silly sci-fi romp about very silly people. Don't expect real science fiction, more like a slacker sitcom.
Gosh this show could have been amazing! Cancelled too soon! Still pretty amazing for a 13-parter that was meant to last longer.
Gorgeously lensed and acted. Amazing cast and scripts, a pioneer of the slow-burn fable in which "fate" seems to be a main character. They had to rush the ending when it was cancelled early, but very worth the watch.
I'm eagerly waiting for more, I don't think it's reached its potential yet.
For a time-travel show it's very mainstream TV networky. What famous person are we going to visit this week? Fun to watch tho.
The most chaotic and sloppy time-travel series in US television, and I mean that in a great way. They travel so much you hardly ever know where you are! Very fun. Very refreshing to have a time-travel series that's not "let's visit famous history."
I am, and will always be, a DS9 snob. Taken as a whole, it's the very best of Trek TV so far.
The show completely tanked in the final season when the guy playing the main character quit after S04. I hate it when actors ruin a show by walking out.
Seven-of-Nine and the EMH doctor are the only ones who achieve 3-dimensional characterhood, all the other characters are flat or mis-written. They completely nerfed the Borg, which is sad considering their story power in TNG.
In DS9 you can tell when it gets good by when Sisko loses the hair. In this one, it's when they let Janeway lose the hair bun.
I can't believe I hate-watched the entire five seasons!
They have Merlin "in the closet" about magic for the whole show, and with the parallels to LGBTQ+ life, you really want him to come out or even be discovered, but the situation never gets better. Disappointing. Strings you along.
They really screwed the pooch on this one when they dropped the team leader/main character Elizabeth Weir at the end of S03--when the problem, if there was one, was with the scripts. They tried to replace her with Samantha Carter in S04, and Robert Picardo's character (which they had to retcon/rehab) in S05. Neither one came close to being an improvement. Jason Momoa is fun to watch, playing the Teal'c spot on the away team.
English subs are exact match for the dub, which isn't bad at all, perhaps typical for this studio.I hear there's been lots of debate about originality these first 2 weeks. It's unlike any TV show I've ever seen, tho movie touchstones include Belko Project, Parasite and Battle Royale.
This series does a great job of seeming horribly brutal and violent, when technically the kills are no more bloody than a TV western.
Anyone whose life didn't pan out like their dreams should be able to relate to the pilot ep. I'm gonna watch it again before moving on to ep2 I think. Unclear what kind of a turn it's going to take--if any. Can't tell if it's going to stay this bleak or do something else. As genres go I'd just say Drama for now. Tho the ending keyboard noodlings were so bad they were ruefully funny.
