This season is significantly better than the first. It completely breaks the stylistic mold and is so different and distinct from any other show. Almost every episode uses such creative stylistic choices ("The Thief", "New York, I Love You", and "Thanksgiving" are the three that stand out to me) that make it much more cinematic than most formulaic TV shows. Aziz Ansari really made this show into something quite spectacular.
It's astonishing to know that even with so many outlets for TV production, including the vaunted Netflix algorithm that seems to know what viewers want before they even want it, it took frigging Seth MacFarlane to give us this terrific piece of TNG fanfic. I can't believe that I almost let this show slip past me.
The longer season makes the overarching story feel a bit streched at times, but it remains really solid and the single episodes are almost always quite brilliant, so who cares? Plus, the last four or five episodes are really great, with a gripping crescendo and a closing cliffhanger that promises a more ambitious third season and the will to keep things fresh by shaking up the status quo. Thumbs up.
A MASSIVE improvement over a so-so first season, Daredevil never reaches the heights of Jessica Jones, but now stands as one of the strongest current shows. There are quite a few parallels to the later seasons of Arrow in plot and style, but Daredevil deals with the same issues much, much more skillfully. The new characters are welcome additions and incredibly well defined, with layered personalities and backstories. More of this, please!
i adored christopher eccleston as the doctor, it pains me that we only got one season of him in the role but i will gladly continue to rewatch his series over and over again. brings back so much nostalgia and many many good feelings.
Starts a bit rough, with the first few episodes especially kind of childish in sensibility (instead of childlike). Even during the bumpy first half though the mythology and world-building are so dense and well-woven that it keeps my interest. Some complexity finally kicks in around mid-point (the first episode I really like is "Jet"). It has a nicely building sense of stake-raising from then on, with some really good episodes, and the finale is downright great. Excited to continue to the next two seasons!
If you're a sad lonely guy (or girl), this season is too real to be funny. It is genuinely sad.
I have heard from more than a few people liking season 2 over 3, and I can see 3 being a bit bumpier (I really like the resolution to Boiling Rock two-parter, but didn't feel too much for the whole thing overall). Still, Zuko's arc alone helps propel the series to higher complexity, and 3 is just ambitious and constantly inventive throughout that I can't help but feel it's a step above.
The first half alone is so jam-packed: from the show's own version of Buffy's The Zeppo in "Sokka's Master", self-knowing (superpower-)teen angst of "The Beach", "The Avatar and the Firelord"'s past-present parallel of epic sweep, to the horror film-tinged atmosphere of "The Puppet's Master". Show's best standalone episode ever happens just before the finale though; "The Ember Island Players" is one great meta-fiction palate cleanser, so hilarious.
Speaking of finale, I have been trying and failing since I completed it to think of a show that saves its very best for its very last, like Avatar did with "Sozin's Comet". Such a spectacular, rousing, pour-all-in finish. Its Part 3 "Into the Inferno", especially, instantly becomes one of my all-time favorite episodes ever. I still get thrills and chills from many music cues and visuals from this finale (Ozai first noticing Aang and zooming towards him; the melancholic orchestra that accompanies that deeply tragic sibling duel). If not for the fact that this has a sequel series, I might be tempted to rewatch the whole thing right now again.
Lol I don’t know what everyone’s complaining about. This show is rad! Very adult take on Star Wars, lots of unexpected actors portraying niche rolls, baby Yoda, seeing the badassery of Mandalorian. Can’t wait to see how it ends next week!
I appreciate the Cold War style setting, which reminds me a bit of East Berlin during the 70s, and the retro robots that make the atmosphere even more post modern.
Maybe the authors also found a little bit of inspiration from Twilight Zone, but otherwise, the first 4 episodes so far are pervaded by a deep sadness that prevents you from fully enjoying it.
However, one is led to watch the whole series.
Honestly this show is good but this is just gonna be a problem when people are adapting novels (sure they can be done right ) but the pacing will be slower i have not seen many good adaptations but this is damn near close .
After some really rubbish sequels to the original movie, this was a pleasant surprise! I definitely went in with low expectations, but ended up binge watching.
My only reservation is I think this was so much better having watched the original movie (which hasn't aged well) than for those who don't know the first film.
I'm almost looking forward to the next series :-)
What an excellent ending to a fantastic series. I can't believe I waited this long to get into Star Trek but I'm glad I did.
Every episode of this season has a great script. One of the many things that makes this season (and the whole show) great is that every single character is written to be likeable and unlikeable at the same time. The writers even managed to make Kresse a little bit likeable.
Overall Cobra Kai season 3 is an awesome season that further more confirms Cobra Kai is one of the most bingeable and most engaging shows currently running.
A science fiction show, part noir and part political suspense, set in interplanetary scale. The show depicts a possible future of space colonization: the life as ordinary persons in the midst of tense cold war and resource exploitation. The show puts class struggle in front and center, as humans living in Asteroid Belts (Belters) trying to survive as the work blue-collar jobs serving the elites in Earth and Mars. The Earthers and Martians, meanwhile, are playing dangerous political games in a race of claiming the riches of the asteroids. We follow the story of a hard-boiled detective, a crew of haulers, and an Earther politician, whose lives are entangled in the emerging conflict that ensues.
The series is not a cyberpunk one, but as we get to traverse the marginalized lives of the Belters, I can't shake the feeling cyberpunk films usually gives me. Thematically it deals with issues of class/discrimination - though sometimes a bit on the face - corruption, and corporate control. Our hard-boiled detective pieces the puzzle slowly. Visually, the neon lights of the Belts, the slums and sewers, and even the food stalls where people eat noodles, seem like paying homage to cyberpunk genres.
For science fiction fans, The Expanse puts the science back in science fiction. Earthers, Martians, and Belters have different physiological forms because of years living in different gravity. Once a while the show takes on a more gimmicky sci-fi like coriolis gravity effect when pouring water, at other times it becomes a plot device that turns the story upside-down. The smaller scale of the setting - interplanetary instead of intergalactic in the vein of sci-fi e.g. Star Wars / Star Trek - makes me appreciate the more realistic touch on sci-fi side much better. There is no jump drive, no hyperspace travel. Ships are propelled with rockets. Space battles don't have that bombastic lasers and explosion, but still intense and perhaps, in effect, much more gripping and consequential. For a TV series, The Expanse has the convincing visuals and excellent set design theatrical films usually have, though like most sci-fi it still excuses itself on having sounds reverberate in a vacuum.
The show spends most of its early episodes (Eps. 1-3) to world-building. The pace is a bit slow and the piecing of the puzzles may make the story feel a bit convoluted. Characters are introduced, but most don't really make a strong impression, except for perhaps Detective Miller (played by Thomas Jane), who despite the cliched trope, manage to be a leading figure in driving the plot forward, thanks perhaps to the impressive acting by Jane.
However, unlike most shows nowadays that get a strong start but becoming weaker as it end on season finale, The Expanse becomes much better exactly in the second half. The pace gets steady, character gets more developed as they interact more like persons, and in a couple of episodes it hits the suspense notes just perfect. Eps. 4 has one of the better shootout and political suspense I've seen in series. Eps. 8 has a brooding pressure Alien series gives as the crew investigates the mysteries. The season ends with all pieces of puzzle being pulled together, but still asks more questions further for the next season.
The Expanse Season 1 is one of the most satisfying show I've watched this recent years. Binged-watched it only in 2 days. I'm eagerly waiting for the chance to watch the next season.
Good first season. Rating-wise, every episode was a seven out of ten for me except for the finale. The season was certainly enjoyable, and I truly mean that, but rating any of the episodes higher than seven would've been an overstatement. I may look back on it differently and in a different light.
Can't wait for next season. I need so much more of this story!
Amazing storytelling, characters and world building.
I will complain a little about two things:
- the clunky animation. In (I suppose) an effort to give a more "hand-drawn" feel and blend with the environment, it's mostly animated on the 3s or 4s, with some moments quicker or even slower - in layman terms, each character pose is held a bit longer than customary. This gives it a distinct feeling, and it does do the trick especially in more complex and CGI-heavy scenes; at the same time, it can be quite distracting or even seem cheap, jarring with the otherwise beautifully rendered scenery. It wouldn't even be much of a problem, but then there's a secondary character that uses ASL to communicate, and not having smooth movements hinders this brilliant choice.
- the scottish accents, quite thick and heavy, and often sadly not consistent or even performed too smoothly. Coming off from what Tennant is doing in DuckTales, it's a bit disappointing... and now you're reading this review in Rayla's voice, aren't you? :P
It's still a season (dare I say, "book"?) that I enjoyed a lot, and I'll eagerly wait for more.
The Avatar Crew always deliver the goods!
For once, I got a terminating decimal average rating for a season: 6.5
I'm going to buck my own tradition and not round this one up to a 7. There's just too much that needs improvement. The humor doesn't really work in this format, and it's mostly low-quality jokes anyway. Almost none of the stories have a satisfying dramatic structure—whether due to rushed resolutions or lack of depth, there are never any stakes.
Star Trek developed (or at least, its spin-offs did) a wonderful way of getting the audience to believe that something could go wrong, that we really might lose one of our beloved characters if things didn't go just right. Sometimes it even seemed plausible for the entire ship (or station) to be lost if anything went wrong, or even the whole Federation. Even though disaster almost never struck, and the vast majority of Star Trek stories end in resolution and a return to (more or less—DS9 being the obvious exception in the latter half of its run) the status quo. Trek's writers used this to great effect over the years, because when the stakes got really high and the protagonists lost, it was that much more impactful.
So far, the crew of the Orville never loses. They somehow always come out ahead, almost as if by magic, and we the audience can see it coming light-years away. Aside from the lowbrow humor, that's the most detrimental flaw in The Orville's first season.
Fox renewed The Orville for a second season back in November, so it's reasonable to expect that we'll get to see some evolution of the concept whenever it returns (likely late next year, around the same time the first season started). If the show doesn't evolve in season two, I likely won't continue following it.
The second season didn´t provide much progress compared to the first. They were still doing what worked best before. I saw little in terms of character developement.
The whole idea of the show was to put a ship literally "where no one has gone before" but we only see glimpses of other cultures. Instead they keep dragging the Kazon along and it became more and more aparent with every Kazon episode that they didn´t work. As the writers and producers agreed later it was unfathomable that you travel a year and a half at high warp and still haven´t left them/their space behind. After all they were a sub-culture that overthrow their supressors just 30 years ago.
I still couldn´t pick a favorite character. Althought I don´t really hate one each of them had a minor flaw or two as far as I saw it. K. Mulgrew does a great job but I never could bring myself to like Janeway. Chakotay is kind of the dog that wants to please his master. The Doctor was still to arrogant but showed promise. Neelix is symply irritating. I can´t really say why I never liked Tuvok. Kes is a non-factor - they just didn´t found a way with her. B´Elana, Tom and poor Harry Kim all had there moments in the show but nothing that got to me. This was unusual because with every other Trek incarnation I had a favorite right from the get-go no later than the end of the premiere season.
But overall it still was on a level back at the time that few shows had so there was reason to go on.
For the most part, I was fairly uninterested in the story or the world-building of my first outing with Doctor Who. All I really cared about was the relationships and interaction between characters. Those episodes fared better in my opinion, and the ones with the ridiculously stupid monsters received no credit from me. I hope to God that the next season improves more with the world-building and character designs, because otherwise, this will ultimately be a waste of my time. The first season was fairly forgettable, with the exception of the game show dystopian idea found in "Bad Wolf" and Christopher Eccleston's role as Doctor Who. Please, please be better in the next season! Here's to Season Two!!!!
Oof, season 1 is rough. Nostalgia and knowing what's coming gets me through, and I do still connect to the Doctor and Rose's relationship. But I understand Drew's criticisms about the tone and humour of the show not quite landing properly. Here's hoping that my memory of the next season being better is true!
It didn’t make me weep for the last twenty minutes like the second half of BSG’s “Daybreak”, in fact I only teared up when The Starks broke up on the dock. However, nothing compares to BSG for me... nothing.
The writing on this show started to deteriorate the further away it went from the source. I don’t think that’s the fault of the show, but George Martin. Even with him informing the major plot points, it’s clear that his nuances went missing almost as soon as they left his established world’s defining moments.
The show runners and writers did the best they could and it shows.
But as TV goes I’m fine with the way it all ended. It all seemed appropriate.
Reading responses to this entire season, and the finale, there is no way a good handful of people would have been satisfied with the way it ended... but it’s a good story told with a satisfying ending.
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Had to struggle to watch the whole 5th season.
It seems that the Show is loseing it !
Too slow paced and too boring.
I hope they completely change pace in the next season, or I will definitely leave it.
Great second season on balance; I particularly disliked 'The Royale' which reflected in my /10 score. The characters are well bedded in now and the freshness of season one has gone; you can see they work better together. The addition of Ten Forward is welcome as the scene's become more flexible.
Now that I'm done, I can see it working as a book, but as a show this is fractured even more than Season 4, with the core cast separating into their own storylines, and I feel the showrunners slightly miscalibrate the weight of each one. This season already scales down from the cosmic and/or mysterious into more human conflicts (that are still hugely, vastly interspace, mind), and on top of that giving most screentime to Naomi's family drama makes the season feel even lopsided towards the mundane, when Amos' journey through post-apocalyptic world or Avasarala's interplanetary politics' play feel more apt for the main stories. Still largely gripping as it has ever been (and the status quo-altering fourth episode is up there with the best of the series), but I hope that (great) finale's tantalizing cliffhanger is a sign that the show will wrap up on a grand scale in its next final season.
Season 2 (A) > Season 3 (A) >> Season 4 (B+) > Season 5 (B+) > Season 1 (B+)
From the least two seasons I'm beginning to think that The Expanse is the strongest at its first half. Like Season 2's Episode 5 ("Home"), Season 3's Episode 6 ("Immolation") is a mid-season finale, and it hits the strongest beat The Expanse has done so far, perhaps since Season 1's Episode 10 ("Salvage"). It ties all the loose knot in a very coherent structure altogether, at the same time. Most story arcs that have developed for a while now (some even from early Season 2) all come to a closing to a very satisfying end. The first half is not as gripping as Season 2's first half, but it is still gripping but nicely paced drama, thriller, and action.
The second half, however, has a noticeable drop. People seem to like it, but I notice less-than-excellent writings with its introduction of new characters. Melba is an uninspiring character, seems like rather tacky plot device to keep the story going, especially with her redemption in season finale. Ashford has a great potential with Camina - seeing their dynamics/rivalries is interesting - however the last three episodes seem to portray them inconsistently, emerging as a necessary antagonist late in the season. The second half also introduced secondary characters, but seem to feel more like stock characters that simply need to be there: e.g. Dr. Volovodov and captains of MCRN and UNN. Compare them with Admiral Souther or Dr. Strickland for example.
It still has the right beat however, but it's been relatively less tight than before. The finale is supposed to be mysterious and awe-inducing, but it didn't give me the same feeling as Season 2. That said, The Expanse is still one of the better (if not the best) sci-fi shows around right now, so I'll stick with it.
Episode average: 8.230769230769231
I'll give it an 8.
There was something missing in this season, I felt. Somehow it managed both to raise the stakes and lower the "compelling factor". I'm still really happy to have high production value sci-fi on TV, and will be watching season 3 of course, but I hope the series returns to the feel of season 1.
What is it about space shows that makes them so interesting? Even when an episode seemed relatively pointless, plot-wise, it was still just a treat to see all the space stuff.
I realized during this season, after visiting Kennedy Space Center at the end (and thereby delaying my viewing of the last two episodes due to being out of town), that not as much of the tech in this show is as far-fetched as it might look. The Saturn V / Apollo building at KSC has an exhibit remembering the crew of Apollo 1, and it integrates transparent display glass not unlike the large control panels we see in The Expanse or the rebooted Star Trek films. It's not a big stretch to imagine that tech being shrunk down for use in handheld tablets/phones. (Certainly, we'll develop that long before the Epstein Drive.)
Time to seriously put the Expanse books on my reading list. I've been lazy about reading them, even though I've wanted to since season 1 wrapped, and here we are at the close of season 2 still with zero pages read…
This was an enjoyable first season. It was more of a prelude to the true beginning that took the entire season to reach, but the journey and the past events leading up to it was still very good. In fact, now that I've watched it entirely, I miss the monster quest-ish aspect with Geralt already, and everything else before the story started becoming more established and like a story. But at the same time, the bigger picture already feels much more intriguing than everything else that was in-between it all when you look back on it from a position of having completed watching it. While I'll miss those moments prior to the story becoming more coherent, and will probably have a feeling of nostalgia thinking back on them, I'm looking forward to the truer-like story of it all in the second season.
If you are looking to watch this for historical accuracy, don't. The show takes many liberties with real historical figures. What was interesting for me as a history buff of this time period was trying to guess how the writers would change the real story for their teleplay. But it does make for good drama. If you can get past that, this is a fun show. The production values are still strong from The White Queen and The white Princess. I always enjoy seeing period piece costumes and settings. I am definitely interested in seeing the second season of this.
