Preliminary review, my final review for Season 1 is in another comment (I didn't want to just edit over this, especially with the likes on it). Very light spoilers for the first few episodes ahead.
I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and give a genuine review of the series as far as I've watched so far (I'll review it properly when I'm done with the season).
So, let's start with the Baphomet in the room (haha), and note that there is some very overt feminism in this series. As I hear, it tapers off as the series goes on, and I look forward to that, because while it is absolutely not pervasive to every corner of the series, it's a cringey part of the early episodes. I wholly support progressive movements, I am happy to see a non-binary character on the show, and Sabrina's attempts to defend said character. I wholly support Sabrina being a sassy, empowered female character who 'sticks it to the man'.
That said, constantly pointing to a plot element and going: 'This is women standing up to the patriarchy!' is unnecessary. As I said before, it's cringey. Let the work speak for itself.
That said, the series, while not a masterpiece, is interesting so far. I appreciate its willingness to broach Satanism (with all its LaVeyan trappings) and all the horror, gore, and sexuality that comes with it. When it just moves forward with the plot, and doesn't spend its time pointing out its progressiveness, it's a solid supernatural drama.
I do find Roz to be tedious. I think Harvey and Sabrina's relationship is unearned (they are way too lovey for 16 year olds with so many secrets between them, and Sabrina, so far, has been rather self-centered, while Harvey plays the devoted and doting boyfriend; feels very much like the criticisms feminists often have about the roles women play in their relationships with men in other stories). I hope that this gets approached with some maturity, instead of devolving into a mess of drama, but sadly, I feel it could easily go either way.
Ambrose is a great addition to the cast, fulfilling the morally ambiguous role that Salem played in the original (but also being properly morally ambiguous, in keeping with the dramatic tone, rather than comically so).
I'll make a proper review when I've finished with the season, but I just felt like this comment section could use a genuine review rather than the 'feminism is ruining everything!' reviews that it has mostly seen so far.
The first episode was awful, 2nd not so bad, but it does actually get better and worth watching.
They’ve gone for a strange stylistic way to film the show, which is probably the hardest part to get past, but you get used to it.
It has some great actors in, but unfortunately the script is poor. Which makes it difficult for the actors. Although, there are some poor actors mixed in with the good.
It actually got a fairly decent storyline if you keep going. Which is a shame as it could have been a really good show if produced etc by someone else. I’m very confused to why they took this approach in the show, it makes it seem low budget.
It comes over as a children’s or family show in a lot of ways, but in fact it’s not given the brutality, swearing, gore etc.
I’m glad I pushed past the things I didn’t like and focused on the story/plot.
For anyone curious why there are no episodes past The Making of Shang-Chi, trakt collects its episode content from The Movie Database. It is a user content-generated site. TMDB determined that all other episodes have been released as stand-alone documentaries. If you look at Disney+, the Assembled show page ends with episode 6: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/marvel-studios-assembled/3RUQKboZV3FF.
While IMDB and other websites continue to treat each new release as a separate episode, TMDB decided to cancel the series and prevent anyone from being able to add new episodes. You can read the thread here: https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/118924-marvel-studios-assembled/discuss/620589dbf48b3400dbd4a6b7.
It's annoying, but unless anyone can convince TMDB to reverse their decision or get trakt.tv to collect their data from IMDb or elsewhere, it is what it is.
