3 years into Brexit and this was the best segment they could muster about it? Drone-shots of coasts on sunny days and talks about tectonic plates about when Britain was literally physically part of the European landmass? There are so many intricacies and dimensions to Brexit the segment didn't cover, shedding shed nary a light on why a good portion of the UK population voted for Brexit, about European rules made in Brussels that do make life harder for a decent segment of the population (bureaucratic stipulations over fishing limits impacting livelihoods of working-class fishermen), the difficulties and all the policies, trade agreements that need to be severed and rewritten to disentangle the UK from Europe, to say nothing of the noise, disinformation, scare tactics, exaggerations, and outright lies in the war of words, the faltering of the Labor Party, strengthened LibDems, etc etc. Instead the segment was made for 6th graders who'd never heard of Brexit before.
Segment Ranker:
Segment Ranker:
Segment Ranker:
1. Peter Schweiz
2. Foster Care
3. Columbus, OH Somalian voters
Segment Ranker:
What if we alluded to part of Eleven's story from Stranger Things, but worse
Allison Tolman deserves better
Segment Ranker:
Segment Ranker:
1. Climate Change // Meet the Kochs
2. Kavanaugh Deja Vu
3. Founding Fathers: They were not gods
Segment Ranker:
1. Trump Corruption (Golf Clubs)
2. Electoral College
3. Illegal Immigrants working at Trump Organization
As VNT winds down in its last month on the air (on HBO at least), the number of segments per episode are getting fewer as well as longer, running 5+ minutes apiece (sometimes up to 7-9 minutes) to the detriment of the quality and conciseness of the stories. While this would seemingly give a bit more room to explore things in more depth and let interviews run longer, in practice the segments end up feeling long and a bit muddled, in need of editing down. Still, with these shortcomings VNT remains a quality program far preferable to basically any other regular newscast, though with a noticeable decline from just 2-3 months ago
Plays out like a thriller. A real life, better version of Taken. VICE isn't going through the motions in its last month on air.
That bit about sound effects in Mortal Kombat was so gnarly and awesome
Segment Ranker:
1. Did someone f**k the pool boy?
2. Abortion providers in the south
Segment Ranker:
Segment Ranker:
1. Election Interference
2. Mike Reubens at the Border
3. Mueller Hearing
Segment Ranker:
1. Amy McGrath
2. Julian Castro
3. Student Loans
Segment Ranker (none really great):
1. Epstein Enablers
2. The Late Shrill
3. Racist-in-Chief
Segment Ranker:
Segment Ranker:
1. Mitch McConnell
2. Run for Senate
2. Reparations
Segment Ranker:
1. LGBT/Pride Month - Doesn't just win by default as the prior 2 segments were relatively weak but touches on companies paying lipservice to pride month by co-opting the idea to self-promote/virtue signal (a recurring issue for other months dedicated to focus on other groups of people e.g. McDonald's turning its arches upside for Women's Month)
2. Multi-Level Marketing - covers a lot of the same ground as when John Oliver covered in an old ep of LWT but more of a focus on how women make up a larger proportion of MLM's victims adds/focuses on a different perspective
3. YouTube - Seldom a fan of when she goes after corporations/businesses. Seldom goes beyond 'big businesses are bad 'cause they're big mmkay'
Ranking the Segments:
1. Mueller
2. NRA
3. Naomi on Black Twitter (she's got potential as a correspondent)
Ranking the Segments:
1. DHS Purge
2. Djibouti Visa
3. 50 Cons of Way
Ranking the Segments:
1. Abortion
2. Biden/Electability
3. Kamala
Ranking the Segments:
1. Presidential Candidates
2. Journalism Business Woes
3. Democrats on FOX
Delicious has gone from sparing, effective sentimentality to unearned sentimentality to forced sentimentality. Cloying/Schmaltzy/Cliche dialogue (especially the voiceovers) doesn't help things
As a Midwesterner, this was an extremely relatable episode.
