what a damn fine cast
Sam Worthington gives maybe his best performance, the series plays around with the audience's perception of his character and he 100% nails what's asked of him to play into that (mis)perception. skimmed some interviews he gave on the Avatar 2 press tour about the fast fame he found after Avatar 1 and the roles he got after that and it's nice to see him in something really meaty he could sink his teeth into and he totally rises to the occasion
Wyatt Russell is an actor I find hard to take seriously in a dramatic roles because I love love love him so much as Dudley from Lodge 49 and I can only see him as a likeable surfer bro-type person (he's Goldie Hawn's son!) but DAMN he also rises to the occasion and makes his character so menacing, great stuff and I'm partial to Lodge 49 but this also may challenge it for Wyatt's best performance
Watched Denise Gough in Andor and thought she was absolutely wonderful there (that whole damn cast deserves all the nominations from all the awards ceremonies) so it was certainly a pivot watching her in more of a kowtowed role (loved seeing her fiercer side come out at the end)
I'll be honest, I thought Daisy Edgar-Jones was the lesser of the Normal People pair but only because Pauls Mescal's performance was so damn powerful and I'm a sucker for silent-but-deeper-emotions-underneath types but between this and the commercial success of Crawdads she's definitely on her way up. Like everyone else, she gave everything this role asked of her
Andrew Garfield reliably good, just keep giving me 1 Andrew Garfield man-struggling-with-his-deeply-held-faith role per decade and I'll be satisfied
Billy Howle made you feel for Allen so much and Gil Birmingham played off of Garfield so well as his partner and when he goes off on Garfield in the last episode it definitely felt pent-up and earned after six episodes of largely biting his tongue
solid writing that takes a serious approach to the religion thanks to Dustin Lance Black's Mormon upbringing and while it clearly comes down hard on blind faith and fundamentalism and the secrets and protectionism that places the religion over the individual's well-being, it's much more fleshed-out than the typical one-note 'religion bad mmkay' takes that often come out of Hollywood
total mixed bag, Ed McVey continues to do good work, imbuing William with the sense of isolation of a future monarch and, while Luther Ford looks nothing like Harry, I enjoy his mischievous take on him and the rapport between him and McVey is solid ("I want you to stay with the family" was SO heavy-handed as a piece of dialogue though)
definitely felt like a throwaway filler episode but the above positives really carried it through and just barely prevented me hating it. compared to the other 'isolated royal males at school' episodes (Season 2's Paterfamilias and Season 3's positively great Tywysog Cymru) it's easily the weakest. The courtship with Kate just feels so lightweight and the writing of the episode feels more informed by gossip and tabloids than substantive research and as another commented, it's so recent as to feel superficial in its import to the crown. I don't need these episodes to be 100% factually correct if it can get at some sort of relational/emotional truth but these last 2 seasons (and bits of 4 tbh) have had me unable to suspend my disbelief as I more and more often during an episode question how much of it is fiction
i keep wanting to be interested in this more than i actually am
They kept the snoozefest of a host?! Honestly they should make the woman (Dr. Jessica Harris) who literally wrote the book this series is based on be the host. She's so much more insightful and interesting as a speaker in 2 minutes than Stephen is throughout the entire series. Granted maybe she declined doing so given all the travelling and interviewing and agreed to take part in every other thing but still the main guy is so disengaging as a host, a total non-presence
All his questions seem to so effortfully be trying to pull out a faux-profound soundbite from the interviewees but it's trying too hard and fails every time, like, a journalist/reporter's questions can sometimes be too journalisty and you just need an open-ended question to let your subject run with it instead of something so obviously trying to shake out an iNsIgHtFuL answer
Whenever there's younger folks on the show their contribution is just to nod their heads at the profundity and murmur mmhmm or that's right (how many shots has there been of Stephen just nodding his head vigorously in reaction to what he's hearing)
Bad tech aspects too:
When interviewing the guy on the plantation they included not one, but TWO shots of him wiping his head, why?!?!? If I'm wiping sweat from my head with a handkerchief I sure wouldn't want that blasted out on an international streamer. Just let the man wipe the sweat from his head in peace without using the shot?! Why did the editor choose that?!
And when talking to the two men in the Pullman cars, one of them is telling a story of a racist experience he had while working and the friggin' camera kept moving and shaking and was unsteady as hell, what in amateur camerawork hell?!?!
I'm not a huge foodporn-y type of person but the shots of the food are immaculate. Could definitely do with 100% less "mmmm!" "this is SO good" reaction shots though
there's a contingent who believes everything post Dreamland episodes has been gold return-to-former-Archer-glory whereas it definitely fell into an overly-familiar hitting-the-same-beats-over-and-over again pattern for me and I was very very ready to bid adieu to Archer but I ended up liking this season a lot more than I expected
a change in dynamics—Lana grappling with taking Mallory's job and all the moral landmines that entails, Archer grappling with aging and a new younger (/better?) agent to bounce off of and trade barbs with really rejuvenated the show for me while Amber Nash's voice acting for Pam remains top-notch and elevates any dialogue she gets no matter how run-of-the-mill—so much so I actually wish there was another season to see this new dynamic further take hold and grow. not perfect (it was very obvious in the bribe episode where that would go and I wish it got to the ending much sooner in the episode and have Lana play moral mental gymnastics with herself in the remainder of the episode to justify continuing Mallory's bribes) but much fresher than it had been for seasons. the ending felt a bit abrupt (I assume they got word of cancellation late in production because it was very much not setting up for that) but man, this is a show that's been on for nearly half my life and it's a little weird that it's just over and done with now
gosh I've done it again and written a damn essay
Sophomore Slump
I went into season 1 knowing little-to-nothing about the show and naturally had no expectations and was quickly won over with the show proving itself to have such an ease of likeability and watchability
I went into season 2 hyped but felt less gripped by the show as it wore on and really only watched the last couple episodes due to being a completist. It's not bad, definitely not, but it lost that charm and spark that made season 1 so easily likeable and so easy to be absorbed in the show when watching. Instead, it felt like a bullet point of plot points that was translated into dialogue; I mean, that's how most shows probably operate but it really felt like just plot points to check off to move the pieces around the chess board.
The acting is never bad and if Sam Reid loses half a step as Dale Jennings (granted with much higher expectations following the first season and Interview with the Vampire), he's still solid if not as consistently magnetic as the first season and Anna Torv is never not watchable. The supporting cast continues to be solid (I'll always appreciate Lindsay going from 0-to-pissed off within seconds and yelling with force that feels like the windows should be shaking)
All the new additions feel like one-off single-season guest stars and very much feel like plot points in human form to move the main characters' stories and thus it's hard to feel very attached or care about any of them though the actors acquit themselves well enough (Philippa Northeast (is that really her last name?) in particular takes a well-trodden trope (druggie daughter!) and makes it far more bearable than if it had been in a lesser actress's hands and I very much appreciate Charlie Tate as attractive mustachio'd guy #2 on the show after Cute Tim the cameraman with a sexy 'stache comes back in the back half of the season).
While I eventually cottoned on to the opposites-attract romance between Noelene and Rob in season 1, the chemistry between the two worked so well I didn't mind. The show really didn't know what to do with them in season 2. While the post-will-they-won't-they phase usually sends characters into boredom for the audience to watch, some shows over-correct by immediately adding in romantic melodrama after the will-they-won't-they question is answered (season 2 of Swedish drama Love Me wrecked every relationship it had spent season 1 painstakingly and naturally putting together for no reason other than jus' 'cause); while Newsreader never quite does that it does tug and pull at the frayed edges of their relationship...just 'cause? We get flashes of what made them work so well: the Black Monday episode where Noelene is quick to realize the youth of many of the bankers/stockbrokers means most of them have never experienced such a severe financial crisis in their life/professional life and Rob jumps onto that insight as they pull aside stockbrokers and ask questions tailored to that line of thinking...it's magic to watch! Rob and Noelene playing off each other as professionals then developing into something deeper worked great and you really see how they could become an item through mutual respect for each other as professionals, too much of that is lacking in season 2 that just sort of weakly centered around a career woman vs future wife/mom tension, it's not a new storyline and it's not one that feels particularly fresh as done here through no fault of the actors.
Creator Michael Lucas wrote/co-wrote almost all of season 1's episodes while he only wrote half of them here which is probably where the assembly-line-of-plot-points feeling comes through as he delegated breaking the season outline into episodes and dialogue to others that don't capture the spirit of his writing. As the season ends, it could function as either a series or season finale depending on the ratings and whether they can wrangle Sam & Anna's in demand international schedule together.
I don't mind Dale's story line and it did feel consistent throughout the season, as he's climbed the ladder and has become a name himself, he's more willing to preserve the status quo and not rock the boat: he's more willing than Helen to do promos, he often sides with Lindsay when she wants to do a story/angle that Lindsay doesn't want/fears will be unpopular and bleed viewers, he's willing to let Gerry fall by the wayside at the end when he realizes Gerry traded stories about Dale for Gerry's self-preservation, and finally at the end when he goes Darth Dale and strikes a bargain with the gossip columnist to keep himself employed/in power and serve as her source. All of it was in the name of self-preservation now that he's the face of Channel 6's news and that storyline works (and it takes someone of Reid's caliber to really sell a line like "a news anchor is forever" or whatever it was). You could really see the LeStat in those last minutes of Dale.
tl;dr acting still good but felt more like an assembly line of plot points to check off
carried by the charm and charisma of its cast (namely Antonia Thomas and Craig Roberts but also Blake Harrison and Luke Fetherston who are likeable in their few minutes of screen time). Thomas and Roberts bounce off each other well despite never being in the same physical location so props also to the editor who made the scenes zippy and flow well
Roberts and Thomas really carried this and elevated the hell out of the dialogue and show that was quite sitcom-y at times for all the wrong reasons: faking a lie about going to Disneyland and having to hide from their neighbor for a month (how is that not a plot line from like, Full House or something) and lying about not buying calamine lotion. So many times a simple/better lie would've been more believable from these characters who are shown as generally intelligent people (Danny awkwardly waving to the woman picking up her prescription at the end could've said he's training her which explains why he's on a video call, why she's being so awkward, and in today's digital/remote work world is quite believable; Lisa could've said she's picking up calamine lotion for her niece which is not the best lie but is better than 'no I'm not buying the calamine lotion I'm awkwardly holding behind my back')
will watch more as background noise just for the actors
Scattered Thoughts:
Love Song (Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Version)
Someone fucking give Richie a hug. I've loved Ebon Moss-Bachrach's portrayal of him since s1 and his character has just been shat on so much as the restaurant moves in another direction and he feels increasingly out of place there and somebody needs to tell him he's worth something. He fucks up and his instincts/execution/ideas are sometimes bad(/very bad) but his heart has always been in the right place and to see him increasingly feel like a stranger in the place he was running (for years?) tears me up. I don't know where his storyline is going (loved him growing but still staying Richie throughout the ep) but his character is so isolated and doesn't seem to have friends/a network/support system outside of the restaurant and I so badly want someone to just tell him he's good enough and worthy and even if he didn't have the restaurant that he'd still have value and even if his ex is re-marrying he's still a good person idk why his storyline is getting to me so much. I wanted Carmy so badly to finish saying what he was saying to Richie on the phone and even if Chef Terry/Olivia Colman eventually said what Carmy was gonna, Richie needs to hear it directly from Carmy imo
Vague possibly-wrong potentially major overall Season 2 Spoiler: I think I spoiled the end of the show for me and God oh God have I been hoping I'm wrong but it definitely feels like they're setting it up over the past couple episodes and I truly truly hope I misinterpreted the meme I misinterpreted the meme allahu akbar
This show is a DRAMA not a comedy ! ! !
Expected a Bo Burnham cameo, got Olivia Colman instead and I'm okay with that
Casting truly is on point, loved all the restaurant worker guest stars
2 of the best scenes this season has been 2 people prepping and talking and shot really simply. When your dialogue is good and your actors can bring the words to life for a visual medium, just set the camera tf down and let them shine
Scattered thoughts:
Love Abby Elliot being more and more enmeshed with the restaurant crew, she was on SNL for "only" 4 seasons but I'll always have love for all the (early) 2010s SNL castmembers
excellent directing from Ramy Youssef, putting the damn camera down for 4 wholeass minutes and just letting the dialogue carry the scene while doing they're dough stuff, love it. love it.
putting respect on Scottie Pippin's name YES :heart_eyes:
just absolutely love the vibe of this ep, could've easily been shot/editing in a boring way but it was so watchable total fly on the wall feel
having liked the individual parts of season 1 but not loving it nearly as much as everyone else, am really vibing w/ this season much, much more
might not mean anything/reading too much into it but:
"Do you have any siblings?"
"Yes. You?" (asked that follow-up real quick before Luca had a chance to ask why the younger sibling wasn't pitching in to take care of mom)
"Uh, um, er, yeah. Younger sister" (stammered quite a bit for a question as simple as 'do you have siblings Y/N' did he USED to have a younger sibling and didn't want to get into it? :thinking:)
I've written before about how the US's condensation of a 5-part BBC series into <2 hours really stripped away so much necessary and important material and context that ended up turning it into a straightforward just-the-facts-m'am retelling of Iraq that made it indistinguishable from umpteen other lookbacks at the Iraq war whereas the original BBC 5-parter was probably my 3rd-favorite show of 2020 and painstakingly fleshed out multiple perspectives and angles of a story that has been scrutinized a million ways over the last 2 decades (https://trakt.tv/comments/318428), so, while watching this 3 years later after the original aired (I can't recall if they just used the exact BBC version of the episode or made some edits/culled together material from the 3 hours they didn't air for the US broadcast, if I had to guess I'd say the former) it was sort of nice to see them add a piece to a story that felt half-told and half-baked when condensed from the OG BBC version, I was slightly disappointed it wasn't an actual new episode but just stuff I already saw when I watched the BBC version.
Still, a lot of it continues to be powerful stuff (though the story of Fallujah probably works better when told in the context of the 5-parter as this wasn't really a play-by-play of Fallujah as it was almost sold as, rather overlapping stories taking place in and during the battle of Fallujah) which speaks to how good the OG version was
I really really enjoyed this movie (if enjoy is the right word to use)
A late-December release with a murderer's row of actresses tackling a weighty, heavy topic that's essentially just characters talking to each other sounds like Oscar bait to the nth degree, but it manages to be eminently watchable with a sub-2-hour-runtime and without feeling Very Important
This could've sagged under its own sense of self-importance or come across as highfalutin preaching but it never does. It could've just boiled down to men bad, religion bad, women good ra ra sisterhood and it doesn't, nor does it resort to triumphantlism in women made a decision together and now they're united and unstoppable against the world (another would-be awards contender mining similar ground, She Said, also mostly side-stepped this, focusing on the nuts and bolts of tracking down a story and piecing it together bit by bit). One of my favorite things to watch is when a group of (usually marginalized) people seemingly all united in one goal are shown to be almost tearing apart at the seams, all agreeing on the goal but when talking about the means on achieving the goal are fractious, with the group almost threatened to be consumed by fighting each other rather than against their common enemy (see: French movie BPM about ACT UP and who gets a say and how big a say in the group's activism; Germany's And Tomorrow the Entire World where a group of anti-fascist activists squabble over how far to push their fight against fascism; and at least the early episodes of the miniseries Mrs. America about the effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in America and the prioritization (or lack of) of women of color and LGBTQ in the movement). The women here very clearly do not all share the same feelings but argue and disagree and quote Biblical passages at each other and swing back and forth between wanting things to change, imagining life without the constant threat of violence, then withdrawing from that imagined life when it the cost is giving up the only life they've known for the unknown and the lack of security that entails vs the lack of security in their current situation.
It deals with its heavy topic, philosophizes, moralizes, but also manages to squeeze in a recurring joke about 2 horses named Ruth and Sheryl, a budding romance sub-plot, and 2 excellent jokes ("I'm sorry, I think I'm dying" & "Oh fuck it off!" "I think it's just fuck off")
I've seen a lot of criticisms about the dialogue and how the women talk to each other but I've also seen a very good rebuttal in that, while they are illiterate, they've been raised on Biblical passages and sermons and have memorized many of them by heart thereby informing how they speak
Excellent performances all around, no surprise there, both from the name actresses along with faces that may not be immediately recognizable to most. Claire Foy finally, finally getting a part that lives up to her talents after The Crown. Frances McDormand basically just makes a cameo appearance, likely more involved in producing it and just popping in for an appearance to help sell the movie (though even that brief appearance has her marking an x on a sheet of paper in the most Frances McDormand-character way possible).
I've also seen a ton of complaints about the color-grading, about it being almost black-and-white, about it looking cheap made-for-television...did not bother me at all. Did not even realize it was an issue until looking up comments online. I was too entranced by the actresses (plus a lot of it takes place at night albeit people also complained it was too dimly-lit) to care.
Music was lovely (by Hildur Guðnadóttir of Joker and Chernobyl fame). Hair-braiding was lovely. Costuming was nice. Editing was wonderful and made what could've felt like a filmed stage play feel a bit livelier and cinematic. There was no need to show any violence or gore and there are just enough quick snippets of the immediate consequences to turn the audience's stomachs and drive home the repeated, regular violations these women endure
started off with some level of promise but fell off a cliff right quick
absolutely did not have the conviction to follow through on the time jump and everything it meant, that a high school not-couple who had an unplanned baby together would naturally drift apart, Oly giving uni a real go while balancing it with motherhood, Santi having a stable job and the life of someone doing physical labor all day, each of them pursuing their own romantic relationships while co-parenting. all of these were set up and just absolutely never developed and just forgotten about maybe 2-3 episodes in
instead, we got more extremely obnoxious young characters who were extremely annoying (who is writing the young characters?? fifty-year-olds with no perception of young people?!). Vince being part of a not-throuple and being a surrogate could've been interesting but the premise was far funnier on paper than the execution as the couple having his surrogate were some of the most annoying characters committed to paper played by actresses without an ounce of ability to survive the atrocious writing (again, who's writing these characters? someone who read a listicle of 'top 10 annoying gen z stereotypes' and decided to make characters based solely on that??). it would've been interesting to see what new friends oly makes in school but they end up bringing back a lot of old characters who allegedly have changed and matured after ~5 years but are all annoying as all get out when they come back.
it was extremely evident early on that they were gonna push oly and santi back together and their respective relationships had absolutely no meaning and nowhere to develop or deepen once that was obvious. oly's TA b/f was sort of interesting at first but the show immediately nerfed him into being some weird socially awkward dweeb. santi actually had a pretty nice g/f (Keeks) who was played by a far better and more interesting young actress than pretty much any other young actor on the show but she was thrown aside in service of the show contriving oly and santi back together. honestly if you're gonna break them up have the conviction to follow through on it for more than 5 episodes before attempting to push them back together.
their respective families have absolutely nothing to do and are given empty nothing stupid storylines throughout the season (i still love the energy Bowie brings to the show even if he was reduced to hey wanna bang no okay through season 3). the actor for Matias is just totally absent in s3 while they unfortunately kept Don around who continues to grate so much. his acting always felt out of step with the show over-playing the baffoon-y dad and he continues to just suck up oxygen in any scene he's in.
lord please cancel this show because i do not have the willpower to prevent myself from further hatewatching
-loved the bit with the Spanish cook asking that chick if she's stupid and to stop calling people lest it causes their ringtone to go off and alert the shooters to their location
-these stupid fuckers should've set their phones on silent asap though. as should every fucking character in any movie/show trying to hide from attackers
-have an idiot husband break a phone 'cause he got his feefees upset from seeing his wife's sort-of-sexts with his best friend. mate you're in an active shooter situation, prioritize and compartmentalize that shit
-how the hell did that best friend struggle to fight off that Spanish twink shooter though? the dude had at least 20 lbs on that twink, he could've knocked him on his ass easy
-can i plz get one hostage/shooter movie/show where every character is fcking competent? like 6 Keely Hawes characters plz. BuT tHaT'S hOw PeOpLe WoUlD ReAcT irl sure 'k w/e but it's not entertaining or interesting to watch a bunch of people running around like chickens with their heads cut off. why did everyone feel the need to run back to the pool to check on someone? like, it's an active shooter event, put on your own damn life-mask before putting it on someone else.
-why the f did the fat dude (Ben?) tell the kids to hold hands and follow the group? he had to take literally 1 minute to help the old lady down the ledge, he could've told the kids to sit tight and have them all walk together. did the writers have a hemorrhage while writing this? did Ben? am i? is this stupidity all imagined by me as I lay on the ground with a brain vessel bleeding internally?? what a shite way to go
-i hate hate hate when scenes don't actually complete and just cut off in the middle of action (when the Spanish twink shooter finds that dude and aims his gun at him and then it cuts to a flashback or whatever? Spinnin' Around is a bop but...), it's supposed to have you on the edge of your seat or whatever but it's just lazy artificial tension (ahem Stranger Things 4 finale...)
a dumb ending for a dumb season
1-dimensional Villain of the Season Sister Elizabeth has been playing chess while everyone else has been playing checkers and they GOTCHA her by having her contradict herself within 2 sentences in the dumbest way possible?! am I suppose to care about Mrs. Neergaard and the surgeon doctor? because I don't at all. Anna's such a brat, yelling at her dad to never offer her b/f a job again only to come back to her dad one episode later and ask for a job and immediately ask for a kr2000 advance. Why'd they break up Lis and Peter and pair her with Dr. Friis? Peter Romer knew how to appreciate her and support her when she felt down herself and Dr. Friis only does when she's well in the throes of a crisis in confidence. the whole Peter-Head Nurse's daughter storyline felt like the writers threw a wrench in their relationship just 'cause the relationship was going too well and they had to turn up the dRaMa. And the transfer nursing girl tells the whole classroom she got r---d by the doctor in her old hospital and all of sudden she's able to have human contact again?? they built up that whole trauma backstory and all she had to do was say it aloud and just like that she can hold hands with her boyfriend that night?
i get it, it's a light-hearted soft drama, I shouldn't get this worked up about a Danish show about nursing in the 1950s, but but...
the nadir of this show (so far)
Anna still sucks so much as the de facto lead character. Absolutely unable to carry the show. She means well but she always comes across as a nag or just intruding on people's personal lives
Ole also super boring. Anna-Ole the power couple of being the blandest mfers on the planet. A charmless couple with the same level of charisma as the pairing of a clump of dirt and some wet sand
Mrs. Neergaard's character has been so so so awfully done, she was a strong independent woman not only willing to divorce her doctor husband but continue working in the same hospital because that was the career she had before she met him and she'll be damned if she lets her learning and experience go to waste to all of 2-3 episodes spent infantilizing her into a PTSD-ridden character that breaks down if she even smells smoke and removes ALL the competence we'd seen in the prior 2 seasons to this women pining for some dude and just generally looking forelorn and abandoned. How to Ruin a Strong Female Character 101. And the thing is ALL the plotlines from the PTSD to the latest happenings in this episode could've been done well but sometime between seasons 2 and 3 they switched writers to a room of 100 monkeys simultaneously typing on 100 typewriters
The most obvious of outcomes happened with the boxer and Lis (OF COURSE the boxer's wife remembers Lis and OF COURSE she blames her)
Last and least Sister Elizabeth. To quote Carrie Mathison to Peter Quinn in an episode of Homeland "Shouldn't you be hiding up a tree or something?" my god this women JUST happens to be standing at the right place at the right time all the time (sure, a sin committed by many shows but especially this one lately, see also: Else walking in on Anna and the new-ish transfer nurse talking; Dr. Neergaard walking in on Nurse Madsen trying to hide the sample)...or was she just standing behind those doors at night with a scowl on her face waiting for the new-ish transfer nurse to show up to threaten her to keep her mouth shut?? In her time standing there, how many people did she inadvertently spring on when they opened the doors??
They've shown Sister Elizabeth being deeply committed to a very narrow idea of how nursing should be done but now she's straight up stealing and hiding important documents? Everything she does is due to a strong sense of right and wrong, and anybody who strays even a little bit away from right meets her wrath, stealing...stealing is wrong and she knows that and her character has always been portrayed as someone who will reinforce her idea of right NOT a character who believes the ends justifies the means. Out of character and just to keep building her as some one-dimensional antagonist character. We're one episode away from her shouting RELEASE THE KRAKEN as she cackles while stormclouds gather behind her or some shit.
Also they spent a whole lot of time this season showing how in the closet Nurse Madsen was and she just blurts it out??? Just letting Dr. Neergaard believe she had broken up with a man was believable but then trying to use this as an awwwww coming out scene was dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb (which, I believe, was the original motto to market this season)
I really am gonna end up writing scathing reviews after watching every single episode this season...i don't want to i just have to get this off my chest
where to start where to start, this one was promising for the first half or so of the episode (promising in being thoroughly middling instead of maddeningly dumb) and then it sunk quickly:
- procedurals aren't inherently bad but my god something procedural shows can feel so procedural e.g. the husband just changing his mind off screen for absolutely no reason other than just 'cause and to resolve the one-episode chararacters' storyline
- maybe it was a consequence of pandemic shooting but my god they just forget half the cast exists every episode this season, like the cast (which isn't even that big!) just alternates having a storyline every other episode between the 6 of them. the extent of Lisa's appearance is just reading a medical textbook out loud? after getting physically assaulted at the end of the prior episode? toft and peter are just there and the not-Erik replacement isn't even on screen. only Anna and and Madsen really get a storyline this episode with the other nursing student girl getting a B-line about her budding salon
- speaking of Anna my god she can NOT carry the show. the more episodes feature her the more bland it is. the interplay between her and erik worked so well because they were so different as characters and had that great push-and-pull of characters who don't like each other but not enough to not be attracted to each other, without Erik Anna is so so so so so boring. and her character is so annoying and has 0 tact in just inserting herself into the personal lives of every patient with no subtley
- and her boyfriend ole's gambling storyline is on episode 2 and i'm already so tired of it. he's so bland and boring the writers decided to spice him up by giving him a gambling debt storyline out of no where that's just fuckin' annoying as hell. poor jazz musician has debt oh wow who cares show me cool 1950s danish medical shit please
- the dialogue is so obnoxiously on the nose. every single plot point is telegraphed so loudly and obviously helen keller could see them from 500 miles away
- salon nursing student is still such a pill
- the moment head nurse told sister elizabeth she's consigned to administrative duties and she'd be taking over the duties I KNEW something would be contrived to get her out of the picture and lo and behold her daughter has an accident at the end of the episode which will likely take her out of the picture and allow for sister elizabeth's reign of terror to resume leading to some dumb climax where the doctors and nurses see her assaulting students or she beats someone up so badly they get visibly injured or coma'd or some dumb shit
- the stolen wool clothes are gonna be blamed on lis aren't they? the mixed up vial of stomach contents is gonna be blamed on lis isn't it?
- characters developed over the last 2-3 seasons are just thrown in the trash for the sake of dumb contrived plot shit. nurse madsen messed up but the madsen of seasons 1-2 wouldn't dig the hole deeper, she'd fess up to giving the wrong food/medications to the wrong patients and not sneak around and hide shit (literally why wouldn't she just pour the stuff down the drain instead of hiding literal stomach bile in her room if she didn't want to be caught...so she can have a big change of heart 1-3 episodes later and confess of course!! / so someone can just so happen to stumble upon it in her room 1-3 episodes later and confront her/rat her out of course!!)
- sister elizabeth pops up every single time someone is having a hushed conversation about her. wtf is she filch? is this hospital hogarts with secret passageways? does she have supersonic hearing??
someone please invent a time machine and go back to 2021 and prevent the the rest of this season from being produced so i won't subject myself to the last 3 episodes plz i beg of u
I'm 2-for-2 in liking awards-season movies that've seen their awards prospects go up in a puff of smoke, barely made money at the box office, and got a lukewarm shrug from filmheads (along with Armageddon Time).
Can't stand most movies/shows that have journalists as characters: it's either Very Noble Very Brave Borderline Infallible people uncovering some horrible covered-up crime and the music swells when the story's published and they're treated no less as some superhero without much personality other than Tenacious Benevolent Protagonist or dig-through-your-garbage shove-recorders-in-the-face-of-victims swarming-like-locusts-type characters who skulk in the dark and will do anything to get a scoop. The actual humdrum work of journalism is often sidelined in favor of just overemphasizing the heroics/rattiness of the journalist character (exception: the superb Australian drama The Newsreader which combined interesting characters and pound-the-pavement work of 1980s TV reporters in a very watchable package). Didn't know what to expect going into She Said, was afraid it'd fall into the Journalists-as-Heroes genre or hit the points of the #MeToo movement too much to treat the expose of Weinstein as The Moment The Patriarchy Ended.
It didn't (for me anyways), and even better it focused a lot on the day-to-day work in getting the story published (with a bit of the requisite 'these journalists have families and personal lives too' scenes but played very naturally and intertwining nicely with their work scenes): Getting leads, interviewing, verifying stories, double-sourcing triple-sourcing information, gingerly initiating conversations with victims who may want nothing to do with them (scenes handled very well by all parties involved), following threads and all the while seeing the scope of Weinstein's crimes grow bigger and bigger. It just focused on the work and I really enjoyed that. (Samantha Morton also pops in for a scene to remind everyone how. damn. good. she. is.) It's definitely not perfect, it has a Big Dramatic Moment that felt very Hollywood & artificial when Zoe's character gets a call about someone going on the record (the music was swelling then, right?), the use of Ashley Judd playing herself but then decidedly not-Gwenyth Paltrow playing Gwenltltyth Paltrow was jarring as hell (why didn't they just shoot the scene without showing Gwynith's actual face?!). But all in all an awards season movie that stands on its own without feeling like a Very Important Issue movie shoehorned into a fall release date for awards.
It's rejection by awards & audiences is understandable, it's almost like the movie came both too soon and too late, too soon as Weinstein is still going through the courts and appeals but too late as a lot of this story has been told (and re-told and re-examined along with reporting about Farrow's investigations) that the average moviegoer can have a "what, again?" reaction when hearing this was being released.
tl;dr I'm just really happy Zoe Kazan got a (co-)lead role in a major studio movie
the writing has gotten SO bad...they added an Erik-replacement but do nothing with Aksel and give his character absolutely no stories of his own??
Ole is such a boring character that boils down to Anna's boyfriend that plays in a jazz band so they had to turn him into some gambling addict who maybe owes large debts?? smdh
The misery-tragedy-bullying porn of Lis's character this season is so disappointing, looks like they might be setting up the groundwork for Lis & her Dr fiance to be leaving the hospital?
and OF COURSE it took a literal assault occurring before Anna's eyes before she finally believed Lis. just absolutely trashed her character and friendship built up over 2-3 seasons to make her suddenly neither care nor believe Lis
The new transfer nurse girl and Toft's potential friendship/romance is nice at least
They haven't managed to destroy Peter Romer's character yet but hate his bros just being shitheads about his relationship, actually resenting the dude instead of normal bro teasing. The 2 best characters of the show are just having their season-long storylines be got bullied, boo hoo :cry:
hate the dumbass writing on this show now but the completist in me won't let me give up a show midway through a season lord help me
What a mixed bag of a season. This started out strong like the show knew it had something to prove after the past few seasons of GoT, the first two episodes were much stronger than the lukewarm reviews gave it credit for.
And then came multiple episodes that were generally still quite good but with a significantly dumb moment at the end (Daemon running through a hail of arrows not getting hit till the very end with only a superficial shoulder wound; everything at the royal wedding (figuring out Criston's banging the princess because he's staring at her too much? at her wedding? when he's her bodyguard? instead of holding onto that information immediately going up to Criston to confront him with it. Criston just losing it and beating a dude to a pulp and nobody stopping him. Alicent finding him RIGHT when he's about to seppuku himself); Lady Laena going from being in the throes of a painful childbirth then disappearing the moment 2 out of 5 people in a room turn their back on her and managing to walk all the damn way to her dragon and putting several hundred yards between her and Daemon when she had just spent hours trying to push a bowling ball through her vagina).
And then the last couple of episodes were just an all-around disappointment (having now watched the season finale, that one was aces and up there with the first two episodes). Episode 9, generally the most explosive episode of the season in GoT, was a bit of a mess. Criston Cole put his hand on an old man's shoulder to push him down into his seat and the next scene is the dude slamming his head on the table so hard he dies and bleeds out? He went from standing up with his head perpendicular to the table in one scene to his head flat on the table the next. The way the scene was cut with Cole's hand on his shoulder one second to him slamming his head on the table the next, there was no indication Cole pushed hard enough nor that he did so at an awkward angle for the old man to end up that way. The worst-directed and edited scene of the series. An episode that should've felt like there was a ticking clock in the race to find Aegon and quickly crown him as the various schemers try to put their plans in action in the immediate wake of the king's death felt more like just going through the motions and checking items off a list. And then toss in every dumb thing about Rhaenys bursting through the ground with her dragon (just one of many: the doors were shown as nearly being closed on the people one moment then 20 seconds later Rhaenys flies through wide open doors??).
The wigs are also not great. Some look more natural than others (Caucasian females got the better end of the stick) but were generally risible (Matt Smith's got much better when it was shorter but his initial wig looked like shit Legolas cosplay). The one on young Laena's head can charitably be described as Great Value Elsa from Frozen knockoff.
The time jumps were also jarring. Realizing that there's a lot more meat in the story to get to, I still wish they had spent the first season on the youngest generation of actors because they deserved it, Milly Alcock knocked it out of the damn park as Rhaenyra and deserved a whole season. Throw in some actors aging up a decade while others looking like they aged up 3 years and then there's Ser Criston Cole, blessed by the gods with beautiful hair and apparently eternal youth.
HBO had made no secret about wanting GoT to run longer and had ~5 pilots in production after the series ended, they should've milked this for all it's worth and let it progress slowly even if that meant delaying some of the juiciest most dramatic parts of the story to later seasons, instead the pacing felt off and really didn't let the complicated, tumultuous relationships between characters breath and ebb and flow a bit more. It's hard enough keeping track whose child is whom in the circle that is the Targaryen family tree, it's harder still when they're played by a different actor every other episode.
every once in a while I poke my head back in and check out Vice News Tonight to see if it's improved since it moved to ViceTV and became a much lesser version of itself than it had been on HBO (last checking in for a few episodes at the beginning of this year), I've left equally disappointed time and time again and seeing how the show has been moved around the schedule (now at the late hour of 11p) and shown with less frequency (now down to twice a week instead of five), one can read into the reasons why
and so I came back to VNT to check it out this week and...it...wasn't bad?? hell, I didn't cringe once (or not much anyways) watching the two episodes that aired. why was that?
-looks like they got rid of the anchor (at least they did this week), easily one of the most baffling and awful decisions made in the transition from HBO to ViceTV, it didn't need an anchor and VNT on ViceTV held on to that role for way too long. too much awkward banter too much too-scripted throws to packages, bad stuff.
-VNT had the unfortunate timing to launch in March 2020 and as such a lot of their ability to report (especially internationally, which (imo) is their sweet spot) was severely hampered. This was also noticeable in their VICE weekly program (that moved to Showtime from HBO), with some of the earlier episodes from season 7 that were shot pre-pandemic outclassing those deeper in the season that had to work around COVID. With most pandemic restrictions worldwide loosening/dropping, the reporters' ability to travel and do international reporting has returned and deep dives into places like Italy and Chile were pretty much just as good as they had been in the newscast's earlier days
-still a 45-minute newscast but the packages tend to run longer and usually it doesn't feel like fluff but rather news packages that deserve to run for 5, 6 minutes
it's not quite HBO quality but it's certainly watchable and given some of the stuff they spotlit were stories I hadn't heard before but were interesting and informative and things I feel will serve as a base of knowledge going forward as I consume news in other places (the rise of a far-right candidate that stands a shot at being Italy's next PM), I'll be checking back on VNT next week and if it maintains its quality it'll go into my regular rotation of TV shows
While overall I'd place the second season on par with the first, there's a few things it does much better, primarily the character of Kevin, who, in season 1, was mainly framed (imo) as Dan's roommate who does some art stuff, feels a lot a lot more fleshed out as an individual in the second season, getting his own stand-alone episode (that I would love another return to in any possible future seasons). They really delve into his artistic ambitions, how others view his art, and mine a ton of great comedy from his time at the art school (and he gets the opportunity to deliver waaaaay more great one-liners ("One of those big-forehead countries") and is given more of a comedic voice than how he came off in season 1 which was sad arty dude). Kevin and Dan spent a lot more time apart this season and their characters (but especially Kevin) benefited from it (I'm reminded of how Sally's story was divorced from being Barry's girlfriend early on in season 3 of Barry and she became WAY more interesting as a character trying to juggle her career and navigating Hollywood than just "the girlfriend").
The writers also saw how good the young actress who plays Zayna is and wisely beefed up her role whereas she felt more like a frequent recurring character in the first season. She's still young but I could see her working steadily in small/guest roles after Flatbush, then shooting an indie movie in 20 years and hitting it big when the movie explodes. A lot of young actors come off as overly-coached and overly-studied as actors and there's something really natural in how she plays Zayna though you could say that about most of the cast (I also gained more appreciation for Kareem and Drew this season).
My only critique, which I didn't notice until the last episode, was how infrequently Dan's therapist appears. She is an absolute force and absolutely kills each and every single one of her line readings even when her appearances are basically exclusively via video call.
This show has really flown under the radar and I'm not optimistic for a third season but man oh man have I cherished the 2 seasons of a show whose humor is so up my alley.
This show was pretty much always driving to eventually reach this episode/point in Sheila's story, where she would need/be forced to get help and when I realized what this episode was (I seem to always need to re-orient myself for a few minutes at the beginning of each episode this season, thinking I missed an episode but they seem to just have these sudden jump in events, not necessarily bad or a demerit on the show, just something I constantly find myself having to adjust to) I was interested/concerned how the show would tackle it. This show has been a pitch black comedy with highly unlikeable (but interesting! and watchable!) characters for all 18 episodes before this one and any sudden epiphanies or breakdown/breakthrough on Sheila's part could so easily come off as trite/forced but they managed to make it happen and still fit within the deeply dark and biting tone of the show (Rose Byrne's great acting, possibly the best of the series, went a long way to making it work along with a bevy of solid guest actresses doing solid work, definitely an Emmy-submission episode for next year). The writing and acting are so good it made me wonder how personal (if at all) the issues of the show/episode were to Rose/the writers.
This show has really flown under the radar but its dark tone is so up my alley, really hoping they get a season 3 but afraid that's a bit of an uphill climb given how many shows Apple TV+ has that are making bigger splashes and getting more acclaim.
A lot of the charm disappeared in this episode of the show which has operated much better when in Spanish than English and unfortunately an excursion to America made the show 60%+ English making for some very clunky dialogue.
Was initially interested in a Spanish/European eye/critique of America but unfortunately it boiled down to trite hurrdurr aMeRiCa LoVeS gUnS And Is AlL dUmBaSsEs wHo ThInKs AlL FoReIgNeRs CoMe FrOm SoUtH aMeRiCa which, alright, might not necessarily be wrong but was delivered with such clunky heavy-handedness as to come off as reductive.
Courtroom scenes were equally bad, falling into nearly all the trappings and cliches of courtroom dramas that are overwritten to overcompensate for typically staid and dry proceedings but with the effect of coming off as hyperbolic and soap operative: cue murmuring court audience, dramatic confrontation between the opposing sides when they just happen to run into each other after trial, big ass speechifying from a lawyer that would've been halted not even a quarter of the way through by a judge in real life, just eye-rolling stuff.
The teenage daughter was (and has been) also very annoying as are 99% of teenage children characters, hope she's off to college and never to return for the rest of the series.
Given how off-putting I find Sean Penn irl and having yet to watch anything starring Julia Roberts that makes me understand why she was so big in the '90s, I didn't come into this with high expectations thinking it'd probably be a one-and-done. My low expectations were consistently surpassed with this becoming a reliably enjoy watch each week.
While it felt like this show was sold as starring Penn & Roberts, it's very much an ensemble show and what an ensemble it is, a uniformly strong cast from lead characters to the smaller roles. Penn & Roberts are very good in their roles (I've seen some scathing headlines about Roberts but I thought she was more than fine).
Dan Stevens is serviceable and occasionally pretty good in a line delivery.
The reliably good Betty Gilpin, Martha Kelly, and Alison Tolman are reliably good with Kelly bringing her deadpan goodness and Tolman, as usual, making a case for her to get more screentime in any project she's a part of.
Stevens & Gilpin make their opposites attract relationship work instead of coming off as contrived which could've easily been the case
Shea Whigham as Gordon Liddy is chewing up scenery like he's a gd termite, going for broke and sucking the air out of most scenes he's in and which would not work nearly as well in the hands of a different actor and it's a hoot to watch. Get this man an Emmy asap
Nat Faxon and Patton Oswald, though normally comedic actors, do well in their handful of appearances (without me expecting a punchline at the end of their dialogue)
Chris's Bauer and Messina also bring characteristically good work to screen
The actress who played Gale(/Gail?) in the one episode where the FBI agents were sitting in a car trying to intimidate her husband into cooperating was amazing and made the absolute most out of her 3 minutes of screentime
Darby Camp was good as the Mitchells' young daughter, making me worry about her future the same way as I did for the daughter from FX's Fosse/Verdon
Historical political shows often either collapse on their own sense of self-importance or end up too dry and didactic, the good ones make it feel like you're watching news unfold before your eyes in real time: the sense of opening a newspaper (/twitter/news home page) and getting the drip drip drip of a story piece by piece from different angles, still unsure of the fuller picture, that you're living through history and Gaslit does that and does it well.
Framing Watergate through Martha MItchell's story and the romance of John & Mo Dean is an interesting angle to take and it very well might've been a mistake but Roberts is compelling and watchable as Martha and the chemistry between Stevens and Gilpin is good, making the opposites-attract of their relationship believable (and root for-able) and both those things go a long way in making the show work.
totally get why this wouldn't be to people's taste (especially if they were expecting a lighter, fun, spandex-clad nostalgic throwback-to-the-80s comedy with a dash of female-entrepreneur-get-it-done-grit-and-perseverance uplift) but this for me is the most underrated show of 2021. 1st episode didn't blow me away (I left underwhelmed but there was enough there for me to return to at a later point in time) but eventually I came back to the show and grew to like it more with each episode
this is dark. very dark. the emphasis is on the first word in dark comedy which will turn a lot of people off (especially since Apple TV+'s signature comedy being the feelgood uplifting Ted Lasso might lead some to expect the streamer's comedies to hew more towards that tone). not only that, but it often deals with its dark themes and material with a flippant comedic tone which might only exacerbate how offputting some people find the show and it absolutely does not shy away from keeping the edges rough, not making the main character's ED any more palatable for a general viewing audience (though not graphic) nor making her very sympathetic, it's not easy to watch a character suffering from a disease and still outright dislike that character (most portrayals of characters with physical/mental diseases are often shown as root for-able or having some kind of character growth towards likeability). likeable characters are few and far in between here, but characters don't need to be likeable, they need to be interesting and every one here is watchable (even the husband who can be a bit one note at times so it's probably my residual liking for comedian Rory Scovel to make his dbag character as tolerable as he is)
who doesn't love Rose Byrne, been a fan since Damages and in addition to the expectedly good acting from her, her voiceovers are also killer, imbuing a lot of snark/derision/judgment/etc etc in her line readings (she can out act some people with just her voice). Bunny & Tyler are also great and totally watchable and while there's not enough Paul Sparks (esp in the first half) when he shows up he's also expectedly solid
not gonna be everyone's cup of tea and i get the aversion from some but glad it got renewed for a second season as the darkness of the material and the tone in which it handles the material is very much my cuppa and i'm here for Rose Byrne in lead roles
Gets worse with each season, though still generally watchable (if better at 1.25x, 1.5x speed in later seasons)
Combination of Matthew Rhys & Matthew Goode made the first season super watchable, the easygoing banter between them made this an entertaining show—even if you don't drink wine—and especially Matthew Rhys's quick-on-his-feet rapscallion humor played well with the more straightlaced presenters, helping let out any air of pretentiousness naturally innate in a show about wine.
As Rhys's screentime diminishes with subsequent seasons (presumably due to his busy filming schedule), others are brought in to diminishing effect (James Purefoy, Dominic West). Even worse they try to replicate some of the banter to keep the show light but it just comes across as try-hard. Without Rhys most other elements of the show get much more boring (Fattorini in particular, but Matthew Goode also appears to only be charismatic in the presence of Rhys) and the air of pretentiousness intermittently takes over the show, try as it might to be a general entertainment show palatable to the masses.
In later seasons, the end of the Wine Showcase segments often has Purefoy & Goode waxing poetic about life and wine while overlooking a sunset or some such wankery and it just makes me roll my eyes to kingdom come.
James Purefoy & Dominic West is quite the downgrade from Matthews Goode & Rhys
Matthew Rhys could be giving a tour of a back alley in a city and I would want to attend. James Purefoy could get exclusive access to some newly unearthed remains of one of the 7 Wonders of the World and I'd be like eh, pass
This show has suffered significantly from the reduced screen time of Rhys (presumably due to his busy TV schedule & residence in the US) and his fleeting—albeit regular—appearances in season 3 make this a step down from season 2 which itself was a step down from season 1
There was such an easy breezy unforced watchability to season 1 that made it an appealing watch even to someone like me who doesn't drink wine and finds a lot of foodie-winey shows a bit of wankery. Rhys's playfulness took the pretentiousness down a notch and was quick to inject a bit of rapscallion humor and had a great rapport with Matthew Goode, who, without Rhys as a partner-in-crime is a lot more dull and less-effortlessly-charismatic than he had been in season 1.
Dominic West is alright, he gets a few funny lines in here and there but it really feels like everyone involved tried too hard to have funny one-liners and they just aren't as effortlessly funny as Rhys (their delivery actually often feels very effortful & scripted) and makes it all the more annoying to see them trying so hard.
Fattorini also, even if he doesn't mean to, is very much the model of a pretentious wine snob which played well with Rhys, coming off as a wise teacher to Rhys's unruly student, but without Rhys he comes across very wooden. Fattorini should stick to selecting wines and not pursue a television career, lacks an interesting screen presence. His and Amelia's bantering voiceovers feel very very forced and scripted. In most season 3 episodes, Fattorini gets 1-2 (usually 2) extended segments where he explores various wines from different countries, the information is generally interesting and the segments competently produced, but I kept finding my mind wandering, Fattorini just doesn't have a compelling screen presence. I don't question his bone fides as a wine expert but a TV career is not something he should set his sights on, at least not as a primary figure, only as a secondary supporting player
Watched this season on 1.25x and at times 1.5x or 2x
A generally competently-made episode with lengthy, sustained stretches of legitimate intensity undone here and there by "Hollywood-isms" (for lack of a better term, realizing this is a British-made program): character quirks (she HAS to have her LUCKY pliers/cutters); forced character banter and handshakes to forcefully show how close the partners are that come across very forced and scripted; her blaring music and bobbing her head along in sync with the bobble-head dog; a lot of lone wolf moments where she takes off her helmet and goes straight towards the potential bomb, protocols be damned!! (major eyerolls at those moments) to, what, show how independent she is? how much she cares about innocent people? Then there's that one bound character with an explosive vest on freaking out, very annoying. idc how people would react in real life but watching someone flailing around and panicking when directly and clearly being told not to and to be still so the experts can disarm the explosive vest they're wearing is always annoying and makes you want to smack the character. Watching 3 people behave calm and cool under pressure and have the silence filled with dread and nervous anticipation beats trying to calm down a panicky character any day.
Forced bits of dialogue to give exposition about the characters' personal lives and background to make us care about them or whatever
Still, overall competently made. The intense moments are effectively so and even when characters banter in moments of respite, there's a sense of lingering dread clinging heavily in the air as I half-expected an explosion to happen in the more relaxed moments (so I certainly saw the last moment happening). The explosion was kind of janky though? Like a bag of dust just went off? It was explosion that seemed to be quite free of any fire
Saw Jed Mercurio's name in the credits at the end, makes sense
May or may not watch more, but as background noise
was afraid this would just be a wealth porn reality show of hey look at the weird out-of-touch-with-reality ultra-wealthy and their gaudy rich people shit (and there is a fair amount of that) but it also weaves in the UAE/Dubai's geohistorical rise along with a look at various types of people living in the city (most often skewing towards the ultra-wealthy) to make it consistently watchable throughout its three 60-minute episodes
on the whole it does play a bit like a travel campaign for the city (admittedly at times I thought about career moves I could make to move to the city and live the life of the ex-pat) and only obliquely and occasionally touches on things that don't paint the city in a positive up-and-coming light
The first episode followed some of the low-wage service workers in the city and I wish we could've seen more of those type of interviewees throughout the series. Also wanted them to step just a little bit outside of the ex-pat-dominated city/vacation hot spots to parts where the Emiratis outnumber ex-pats and get a sense of how the rise of UAE/Dubai has affected those parts & population (though I get that isn't gonna be the focus of a show with the subtitle "Playground of the Rich")
Original Israeli version ("On the Spectrum" currently available on HBO Max) is superior
Scattered thoughts:
-Leads are serviceable but all the neurotypical supporting characters (especially Mandy the aide) are bland and forgettable (save for Jack's dad, a character added in this adaptation)
-A bit distracted about their splitting Ron's character's plotlines between the two male characters but sort of understandable given the storylines of Amit (Harrison) in the original series was kind of just him being a creep to women
-Not as immediately winning as the original where I had to keep watching more episodes
-When the leads are onscreen, it's watchable. When they're not, it's not
-Seeing as how much I love love love the Israeli actors in the original (especially ESPECIALLY the one for Ron (Jack)), that I don't feel these leads are lesser-than knock-offs speaks to their abilities
-"I don't like to talk when I eat, I want to eat when I eat"
"Then how about we talk after you finish eating"
"After I eat I have to digest"
I fucking felt that.
-Jack got a few laughs (audible nasal exhalations) out of me, truly the best
-The female's skills at going from zero to absolute freakout in a few seconds just may well be on par with the original series's actress
-Still an aura of typical heart-pulling Very Important Drama (again, way more so when the leads aren't on screen) which is very much not my thing, this'll stay at 1 episode watched
-Perhaps unfair to constantly compare it to the original but I absolutely loved the original so so much, they didn't butcher the adaptation but there was such an effortlessly likeable watchability about On the Spectrum that I'm not finding here
It's like someone watched the 2019 HBO Theranos documentary and tried to do the same thing with JUUL but worse in every aspect.
Episodes of The New York Times Presents (and its precursor The Weekly) have been very hit and miss (with the average episode usually slightly-above-meh) and not really having any stand-out episodes (even its biggest hit the Britney Spears episode felt so copy-pasted from prior reporting that even someone with only cursory knowledge of the FreeBritney campaign would find little new or enlightening, though its success probably stemmed from packaging prior reporting from an extended span of time into a more easily digestible 1-hour television format) but I'd never been as frustrated watching an episode of the series as here.
Why why why did they spend SO much time with the one teenage(?) girl??? If there was a 'teen smoking/vaping epidemic' as the episode repeatedly mentioned, it'd be useful to back it up with more stats & figures (other than the 3 charts they showed) instead of repeatedly coming back to a total of ~15-20 minutes on one anecdotal story so patently played to pull at heart strings. So she ended up smoking 2-3 pods a day (with the episode saying one pod ≈ 1 pack of cigs)...how is that the fault of JUUL? JUUL was not saying go out and smoke multiple pods a day (or was it? the episode doesn't dig into it!). Taking one extreme example to represent a larger problem undercuts the position the episode is trying to put forth (or WAS it an extreme outlier? the episode doesn't dig into it!). Digging deeper into the company's advertising practices and comparing how it's different/more insidious than other companies (especially ones that are restricted from advertising to youth but dance around the legal restrictions) would bolster the story's case a lot more (and when the girl's mom starts crying 'cause she found e-cigs in her teenage daughter's room was...not as big of a bombshell as the episode's director/editor thought it was...lingering on the shot long after it was obvious the episode was trying to hit you over the head with a Big Emotional Scene). The story was told from a generalist point of view when someone from the digital advertisement/tech beat would be better suited to add a lot more background and details around companies skirting age-restrictions in advertising as more money & focus flows to digital.
This episode, more so than others in the series, was clearly trying to make a case against JUUL instead of a more straightforwardly objective documentary, and there is probably a case to be made against them, but this was so sloppily made I finished the episode with frustration not at JUUL but at NYTP for wasting an hour of my time on such a scatterbrained, unfocused, poorly-argued episode. It flits from subject to subject instead of building its case brick by brick, it spent a decent amount of time on Monsees's childhood and education, but sort of just flits past Monsees's demotion to CPO (why? did other co-workers see any problems with him? he gave one bad performance at a congressional hearing but WHY was he so unprepared? the story barely delves into what he did day-to-day. and did it really matter? CEOs get dragged in front of congressional hearings all the time to get raked over the coals for members of congress to grandstand and they've held onto their jobs, why was it different in Monsees's case)? Practically every speaker feels so nakedly slanted against the company...which actually makes them less effective as talking heads as the story is already operating at a hysterical level throughout. There's a lot more meat in the story of the way JUUL presented itself as better than smoking and how much worse the health effects are/were than what it originally put out there, and the episode touches on that but more science and more breaking that down was needed to drive the point home than how it was conveyed (talking head of someone with an axe to grind against the company, footage of health official's dry press conferences). And again, Instead of covering any of that it spent almost half the bloody episode on one anecdotal human-interest-angle interview that was a lot less effective than the reporter seemed to think.
At the end of the day, the tone (quickly) devolves into Helen Lovejoy shouting "won't somebody please think of the children!" and pikachu shocked face that teenagers smoke. Not that teenagers smoking is a good thing, but your argument is made much less effective and causes the audience to instinctively tune out when your tone (for a whole hour!!! this could've been 45 minutes!! or less!!!) is so strongly of paternalistic moral shock.
Shoddily directed, shoddily edited, with so much strong long-form video journalism being put out there by other outlets this pales in comparison
