A couple of episodes to get the engines running and then simply one of the best seasons of television ever. Much better than the already great season 1. Netflix was finally able to make something comparable to Orange is the New Black.
The cast is great, writing is really good and the way it mixes the wrestling part with all the different stories that slowly come out is quite gripping. Plus, it's a lot of fun. Maybe it's a bit of a slow burner, but when it burns it's really great. And for once the eighties theme doesn't feel badly done.
When it takes itself too seriously it's a bit clumsy, but overall it's still fun as hell.
It's not that atrocious, a couple of actors are well casted and there's some potential for growing up (but I assume we won't see anymore of this, so... ). The problem is that it's so naive... it's written like a show from twenty or more years ago, it really is out of its time. And yeah, of course, even if you look at it that way, it's not particularly good.
What the fuck wow yeah.
The first three episodes are amazing. Gripping, romantic, thrilling, deep, sexy... it trojan horses a spy story inside a drama/romance/thriller thing and it does it in a wonderful way. Episode four is where it collapses by letting the uninteresting sci-fi/spy element take control. Episode five doesn't particularly get better. Still, the amazing start and the great cast deserve a view.
Michele Placido's direction for the first two episodes is really bad and the older actors are made of pure wood, but if you can tolerate that you will get a pretty good crime drama, quite engaging when it's about the younger characters (which, fortunately, is most of the time).
Even better than season one. The level of not giving a fuck and doing whatever it wants is amazing.
Great start and finish, a lot of kinda average episodes in the middle, with too many recurring jokes. The animal stuff is always great, though.
Visually it goes from some nice things (mainly in the backgrounds department) to some awful stuff (mainly the characters). The writing is a bit clunky and pretentious, but at the same time the adaptation from the games is well made. It needs a little less silly monologues and a bit more action, possibly with a bigger budget, but the last two episodes show some potential. I kinda think that from season two it could be fun.
Season 2 feels like the engine has been started and there's less preoccupation with the world building that occupied most of season 1. There are some nice storylines, pretty emotional stuff and a sense of hope against the feeling of impending doom that makes everything nicer to watch. I still have trouble with most of the young actors, but the rest of the cast is quite good.
How the fuck does this get better and better every year?
The pilot is really amazing and the rest of the series is not on the same level but it's still really, really good, with great characters and a wonderful pair of actors in John Turturro and Riz Ahmed. This is how procedural crime stories should be made.
At times the humour falls a bit flat and I'm not sure that the longer season was a good idea, but overall it's still lots of fun. The "timeline" plot device is kinda confusing but also really fascinating and the whole drama element works beautifully, with great character development.
Funny, sad, deep, tender, thoughtful, imperfect, unmissable.
After the disappointing season 5, this is a return to form and a great ending for one of the best series of recent years.
Once again, waiting to have all the episodes was the good choice, not only because I prefer to watch stuff at my own rhythm, not only because if there’s a bad episode I didn’t wait a week for it and I don’t have to wait a week for the next one, but also because, after reading people’s hate on it for a month and a half, the expectations are so low that I end up having fun. Also, in this specific case, there’s the fact that in the meantime I watched Barbie, so every time I saw the bad guy (who, to be fair, gives a decent performance) I thought of the dumb Ken from the movie. Anyway, Secret Invasion is another case of wasted potential: there’s a great bunch of actors, the premise was solid and it could have been Marvel’s Andor. But if you wanna make Andor, you need to write and direct the shit out of it and here those duties were clearly given to a bunch of Ikea cupboards. That being said, I kind of enjoyed it, because actors manage to squeeze some fun from it (Olivia Colman is the queen of the world, Ben Mendelsohn is her vice), because seeing the Super Skrull was entertaining, because - as is par for the course with Marvel - there’s a couple of very good scenes you can hang on to tell yourself you didn’t waste five hours of your life. Which in this case are the conversation between Jackson and Mendelsohn on the train, all of Colman’s scenes and the whole conjugal Fury stuff (the best episode is centered on that).
The first episode left me quite cold, no laughs and some cringy moralistic bits. I even thought I was maybe tired of Zerocalcare. But then I had so much fun with the rest of the show and I though it was very well structured in terms of ambiguity, morality, difficult choices and stuff. So, it’s good. Also, is it just me or did they have a sensibly bigger budget? I don’t remember hearing this many needle drops in the other show.
Poker Face is Natasha Lyonne doing her version of Columbo, with the mannerisms, the “wait, one more thing”, the chilled attitude and the fact that we know the culprit before she/he does. Plus, there’s the usual Lyonne vibe, a pseudo-superpower that makes things more bizarre, and an A-Team-like setup in which se has been framed and she roams around the USA helping people. Also, she kinda is like the comicbook Mickey Mouse, solving crimes while not being a cop. All of this is in a show that starts relatively “tame” but slowly becomes visually and structurally more and more ambitious, with some many homages to different kinds of detective stories and meta elements. It was created by Rian Johnson and it’s lovely.
Fleishman is in Trouble has got everything. The actors are great and perfectly cast, it’s visually ambitious and there’s such rich writing, that tackles midlife crisis, couples in troubles, abuses, nevrosis, bad healthcare, classwar, parenthood, small hypocrisies, trauma, being unable to communicate and everything else you could think of. It’s maybe a bit stretched here and there but when it works it’s amazing and that penultimate episode is out of this world.
Most of the time I have no idea what they're doing or talking about and it still is riveting.
She-Hulk confirms the recent trend of MCU TV shows being consistently committed to the bit, instead of being something fresh and original for twenty minutes before going back to the usual stuff. Which doesn't necessarily mean they are good but is something I really appreciate. I almost hated the first episode because it was everything I hoped the show wouldn't be, even though it did that in a nicer than usual way. But after that it only grows in quality and commitment. And every time it has a chance to steer towards the usual MCU fare (like with that guest star) it doesn't. The final episode makes the whole thing super explicit and jokes on that tendency, so that's also very good. Overall it's a good show, consistently funny, with good actors and an amazing Tatiana Maslany. That being said, it's fine, with nice ideas, very good moments and I like how it puts its themes front and center, but it's not even remotely comparable to stuff like Fleabag (an explicit inspiration) or The Good Place (which I think had a similar vibe). But I don't expect that quality level from MCU stuff, so I got no problem with it. Ah, of course my favourite episode are the ones some people don't like because they are too much "bottled up", like the wedding one. By the way, I don't think they actually are bottle episodes: they are necessary in the development of the storyline but whatever.
Barry's third season seems thought for people who still didn't get (or forgot during the hiatus) that sure, there's comedy here, but it's really about digging in the depth of human souls, in the damage that comes from violence and in the impossibility of running from the consequences of your actions. And it's fearless in how it goes deep into the abyss. Visually more ambitious than ever, with a perfect cast of actors, incredibly written, it crazily dances on the delicate balance between farce, drama, thriller, comedy. It embraces the fascination for the guilty laugh, for making you feel disturbed by your laughs, and it doesn't do that through ridicule and cringe. No, it injects laughs into tragedy, anguish, pain, and always makes it work. It's a masterpiece and I can't wait to see what they are doing with season 4.
It takes a bit to find its rhythm (I honestly found quite boring a few of the first episodes) but then it becomes a fun ride, with lovely ideas, humour, adventure. Characters are great, visually it's lovely and David Tennant is David Tennant.
Bluey is an amazing show, that makes me and my daughter laugh so hard with its montypythonesque humour but also moves me so much with its approach to family dynamics. Basically, every episodes generates moisture, whether because I'm pissing myself or I'm almost crying. It is so realistic in its absurdity, so creative, full of attention to detail (I love how it uses the tails of its canine characters to express their emotions), always really smart in how it treats characters of all ages, giving them agency, personality, intentions. Sweet, lovely, sarcastic, irresistible in how it characterizes the parents who get bored/tired and in how realistic it is even in the most crazy situation. Sadly, on Disney+ it's censored quite a bit, I guess based on America's tastes, so we cannot see a pony pooping because I guess it's too much (what the hell?) or you cannot have a kid asking about how babies end up in mommy's belly because... because? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4E2s9KhM6w ). Even "better": there's no Dad Baby episode (I found it on torrent and we laughed so hard while watching it) because - OH MY GOD - dad plays with the girls faking a pregnancy and "giving birth" in the garden with the help of a neighbour. But we cannot see that. Because of course we can have decades of Disney movies in which the message is you solve the problem by killing someone but god forbid talking about how babies are made, kids asking questions about that and parents having to answer. Oh, I love the australian accents. <3
This is exactly the level of low key darkness I needed in my life.
A great cast (I particularly love Dave Franco and Ilana Glazer but they're all great), a good detective story built on small details and deceptions, a great concept with the "movie genres" idea (which I've seen before - it reminded me of some episodes from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - but never in such an extensive way), lots of laughs and some of the crazy moments you would expect from Phil Lord and Chris Miller. It takes a couple of episodes to really start working but then it becomes a very good show.
I'm sure the "two volumes" format worked in terms of buzz and post production but that month of waiting, hype, chatting and watching trailer is, I think, part of the reason why the ending didn't move me as much as it could have. I was too focused on that, on guessing deaths, on the wait, and even though I had lots of fun, something didn't click for me. And I found a confirmation of that when I rewatched some scenes and found them more emotional on a second viewing. So I really think I would have enjoyed this so much more if I had the two final episodes ready two watch a day or two after the seventh. I guess I will never know.
That being said, I still think it's the best season after the first one, I still think the ending of episode four is one of the best moments of all Stranger Things (and that may also be part of a problem, because after such a high in the middle, you wait for something as powerful to come, and it doesn't), I still think that the longer episodes are not a problem because sure, they could have cut something here and there but it was always very enjoyable and in fact the length helped them to give dignity to all storylines, like it happened in season one and didn't really happen in two and three.
The new bad guy really works, even though he looks ridiculous and his info dumps can be quite annoying. The cast is amazing as always and the Duffers confirmed their talent in introducing characters that I don't really care for at first sight but I end up loving. It happens at least three times here, in very different and successful ways.
And of course the point, as usual for Stranger Things, is in how good the characters are and how well they are used. They are amazing, with great chemistry, really well written. Even in its worst moments, this show is always great with characters and relationships. And every episodes has got two or three amazing moments of comedy, drama, sweetness, beautiful interactions that are the engine of Stranger Things. Because they are the reason to watch it.
But it really is time to end it: the seams are visible, there's so much repetition and a huge risk of having emotions deflated by predictability. It kinda happened for me here with how it ended, I have to say.
Hope they don't miss the landing. They never did in season finales, but a series final is a different and tougher beast.
We Own This City is like if a sixth season of The Wire came from the multiverse, with returning actors in different roles and a complete change in style. The Wire was very emotional and personal but told through a docufiction visual style, We Own This City is a very dry and journalistic story told through the cinematic, messy, vital, temporally broke, ioncredibly effective vision of Reinaldo Marcus Green. And then there's a spectacular Jon Bernthal, who roams around the episodes like he's the shark from Jaws, swimming here and there, always ready to bite and chew everything when it matters. It needs a couple of episodes to really get there, but it's a great show, full of interesting ideas and with an amazing final episode.
Watching Obi-Wan Kenobi after seeing everybody get angry about it for weeks, I kinda expected it would rob my house and harass my family. In the end, i found it less boring than The Book of Boba-Fett. Now, "less boring than The Book of Boba-Fett" is not a great compliment but, I mean, this is the usual Disney+ mediocre shit that's got a few really good ideas but lets them go to waste because it doesn't want/doesn't know how to develop them and it dilutes in six hours of TV a story that (maybe) didn't deserve more than a two hours movie. Also, I'm not sure about which creative decision I find more astonishing between (1) "let's throw away the script about Obi-Wan protecting Luke because it's too much like The Mandalorian and use a script about Obi-Wan protecting Leia instead" and (2) "finding narrative tension in a story about a protagonist and an antagonist who aren't really in danger is hard, so let's focus on putting in danger a third character who also cannot really be in danger and having a fourth character who only wants to kill one of those three characters (who cannot die)". And let's shoot ourselves in the foot, while we're at it. Then of course, even starting from that, you still can do good stuff if you can write in a way that creates narrative tension based on deep characterization, relationships, character's journey, developing those ideas that, I repeat, are there but, as usual, don't have any depth. Or maybe you can save the show with a spectacular visual approach, great action, those kinds of things. And sure, there are some good moments but mostly this is a show with amazing production values wasted on a visual and narrative approach that feels twenty years old. Which also makes me think that these shows are starting to really feel very flat and samey in terms of looks and I'm wondering if the celebrated StageCraft is the guilty party in that.
All that being said, I didn't find it particularly worse than the usual mediocre silly pop stuff that we get on Disney+. You know what didn't help? It being released while Stranger Things, Ms. Marvel and The Boys were reminding us that you can do silly pop stuff that is not even remotely perfect but has got so much more personality and/or ideas and/or interesting visual stuff.
