The first 2-3 seasons were superb. They gave an interesting glimpse into the enduring monarchy whilst everything around it is changing fast. And the events depicted are far enough in the past to be new to people of my generation.
But then the series slowed down, the soap opera elements with Charles, Diana and Camilla took over, culminating in that ever whining Charles and doe-gazed Diana... It felt like dragging through molasses, honestly... and then the William and Harry-spectacle is started. Season 5 and the beginning of season 6 are suffering for it. Contrasting what I said above, I think the writers just couldn't resist that spectacle... but since I've grown up with it... it just feels rehearsed and repetitive and soulless.
So my view of this series remains quite ambivalent. I'd have wished for it to have ended before all the soap opera, maybe with Charles and Diana's wedding in season 4. I just think it's not yet time to view (and judge) that period objectively.
A group of middle class friends from diverse culture’s all with virtuous careers, that nobody will have ever seen together at a holiday resort ever, have to survive a terror attack! The men are all pathetic, blithering idiots or dirty cheats, except the security guy, and the women are all panic stricken wrecks, except Keely and the doctor. By the end I was just hoping the gunmen would kill all of them. Questions that arose from the quite terrible writing are:- Why was there only one small knife in the kitchen and why did the idiots leaving the complex run into the wasteland when there was a village right next door with children playing and all the villagers oblivious to the gunfire and Spanish swat team that were circling the island in a helicopter?
I kinda forgot that HBO had prequels planned for GoT
Pretty good show until on season 3 turns braindead stupid. No wonder that one is impossible to watch legally. If I where the creators I would also be ashamed of it and try to hide it.
Leave it to Jessica Biel to make Candy Montgomery sexy.
So erm....#TriggerPoint who else was screaming WHY would would you turn on any switch anywhere in that place ? and why would you RELEASE the cordon before you'd completed the number plate check ?
Helping to move the plot along I guess....also they seemed so lax and took numerous unnecessary risks
#Triggerpoint
[NRK] It tries to humanize the characters so much that it cannot avoid falling into sentimentality and chauvinism, but curiously it does a disservice to historical characters like Princess Märtha by inventing an unbelievable romantic relationship with President Roosevelt. An uninspired example of "inspired by real events", monarchical and patriotic in the worst sense, and surprisingly produced by a public channel.
No one discuss that historical facts can be used as the basis for constructing a fictional narrative ("The Crown" (Netflix, 2016-) does so consistently with good results). The question is if it is really necessary and if that contributes to making a more interesting narrative. Norwegian historian Trond Norén Isaksen said in the newspaper Aftenposten that "there is no indication that the princess and the president had an affair or that Roosevelt was sexually active after being paralyzed from the waist down in 1921." And that the alleged romantic relationship was a "fake new" created by the president's opponents and especially The Chicago Tribune newspaper. This historical reality is so fascinating, with its political intrigues and conspiracies, that the sentimental story of unrequited love. La ficción evita la realidad para crear una narración que es mucho menos atractiva. Fiction avoids reality to create a narrative that is much less engaging. And it is the great mistake of the screenwriters, who also detract from characters like Prince Olav, here portrayed as a simple jealous husband, and Eleanor Roosevelt, overshadowed by her husband.
Several things....Since moving to Viceland, these episodes are too long and they add cheesy music that makes it stupid. They need to change the format or I will probably not be watching much longer. HBO was must watch nightly. This Viceland...snoozefest mostly.
As a Dutch person, I never actually knew the story behind Fokker and the KLM, so that got me interested combined with the preview I saw. In that preview they mentioned this was one of the highest budget Dutch television series ever made, with lots of actual footage, models and CGI where needed. Without spoiling anything from the storyline itself, I can say that not once I noticed I was watching a CGI enhanced scene. Of course, once you know that CGI is being used you can easily guess the scenes in which it was used, but nonetheless it was extremely well made. The most important part is actually the acting and that's absolutely perfect.
The fact they used a younger and older Anthony Fokker and Albert Plesman (and their wives) was the stroke of a genius. Not only that, in one case the older actor adjusted to the younger and in the other case vice versa, either way they were so well cast and even better how it smoothly went from one to the other. It's a miracle that in such a small country (compared to the UK or US) the young and old Anthony Fokker look so much alike and also share the same traits both on and off camera.
The storyline isn't always true to reality, but it doesn't detract from it otherwise. Being a limited series, I can understand that they had to simplify the death of one of Plesman's sons Jan. In the series he simply just died during a flight, while in reality he died in 1944 while fighting in his Spitfire during WWII. I can see that some people will not consider this to be a good thing, but I do see the burden of explaining the whole WWII phase and as it's not about Jan, but rather his father, I get the fact they did want to show his grief upon losing two sons, but not wanting to extend a couple of episodes just for that.
Fun fact: Albert Plesman's son Jan had the nickname De Vliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman) which coincidentally is where the name of this tv series came from, though in this case they called it Vliegende Hollanders (plural, Flying Dutchmen), obviously meaning Anthony Fokker and Albert Plesman.
Great tv show and although I don't often watch Dutch productions because of bad experiences in the past, this one was well worth it and has shown me that we can deliver production quality comparative to UK or US productions.
[Movistar +] A dynamic, emphatic, forceful series about the police and the ins and outs of corruption. It is a production made with talent, sequence shots that take your breath away. Sorogoyen is a master at managing the internal tension of a scene, at portraying the emotional turmoil of the characters. Sustained in a script that is armed with a very solid structure, it is five hours of pure cinema.
