At least my review won't be about the pacing, which I deem quite consistently upbeat and even enjoyably ambitious so far. In fact, I'm here to register a complaint about the acting thus far, and by extension the casting for the series. The characters are all shaping up to be (hardly a shocker, either) incredibly rich and in many ways more archetypal. Where I get lost is in the acting, in particular from Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra and even Paddy Considine as Viserys. They're just not selling me on the reality of their characters and I can't tell yet whether the actors lack the depth for the roles or they're all falling victim to lousy direction; I suspect the former, but only time will tell.
Maybe a part of it stems from the ages of these characters, which skew much more to the margins than GOT's did? I'd find that more believable had the young actors who played the Stark children not completely CRUSHED it left, right and center. Plus there's the fact that these aren't nobodies, I mean I first saw Ifans in 1998's The Replacements and while funny he wasn't turning my head there either (though in fairness that's a much higher bar when all your scenes are opposite Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves, hah).
There's something missing here still...that "spark" that makes you forget this is all just fiction in between the credits. I hope they manage to find it because I really want to like this show, but after two episodes I'm still stuck on Meh.
Alright, I know I am probably alone on this. I know it’s not incest, they aren’t actually related. But Luther x Alison was weird as fuck, they were sneaking around trying to bang each other while talking about “their sibling” and “their father”. If you are going to make them a thing, don’t make them view each other as siblings! And how that relates to this episode (and apparently those to follow) is me by default disliking Luther x Sloane. It’s nasty and feels like the same thing. (Because in my mind, alternative universe but they are all still kind of sort of siblings, ya know.)
And because I see Vanya/ Viktor being such a hot topic here. I hoped he would keep just being Vanya once Elliot came out, not going to lie. But Vanya transitioning to be Viktor was handled very simply and briefly, which is how I prefer my LGBT characters at this point. I am sick and tired of the woke agenda always taking things too far and just preaching instead of treating them (us actually, lesbo here) like normal people. Sexuality and transitioning is not a personality trait, stop treating it as such. The brothers reaction basically being “yeah, cool. Anyway —“ was refreshing lmfao.
There is a dangerous trend in some recent "adaptations" that seem to take the original more as a marketing ploy than a real source of inspiration. "Ratched" (Netflix, 2020) was a typical Ryan Murphy "American Horror Story" (FX, 2011) with hardly any connection to the character on which it was supposedly based; "Clarice" (CBS, 2021) is a typical CBS procedural show that little or nothing maintains the creepy atmosphere and psychological depth of "The Silence of the Lambs" (Jonathan Demme, 1991). And "The watch" (BBC America, 2021) supposes the construction of a Discworld with characters that little resemble those of the novels in which they are inspired. The reference works as an element of attraction, but the development follows different paths, which is ok, but in many cases insulting the original source.
In "The watch" there are characters that work well if you do not know the one on which they are based. For example, Richard Dormer is a good Jack Sparrow, but he has little to do with Sam Vimes. And the show in general works the same way. There are interesting and funny moments, as long as you don't take Terry Pratchett's novels as a reference. And it almost looks more like "The magicians" (SyFy, 2015-2020) cyberpunk than the original.
