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krelat
Reviews
Voroniny (2009)
Charming and honest; outdoes the source material, as the best adaptations sometimes do.
I have no idea why this has such a low rating. Anti-Russian sentiment? A while ago I was supposed to study for a big test one summer. It was lonely and the studying was grueling. This show kept me mentally awake and alive and interested in what I was doing. The characters are charming, and frankly I like it better than the American show because there are episodes with plots that feel more like a soap opera or "slice of life" rather than a comedy, which is nice sometimes; and instead of ticking off the boxes for common sitcom episode plots, there are many that don't "follow the rules". If the writers had an idea, the episode got written. It's pretty great, helped by the fact that the actors are perfectly cast and seem to genuinely enjoy playing their roles. These people are big names in the Russian and former Soviet world; it's still normal to come home in east Europe and have them on your screen for an hour or two around dinnertime. Don't let the weird 4/10 rating average on this site scare you away if you have the chance to watch it!
Starhunter ReduX (2017)
Who knew this could be so great? The people who stuck with this, that's who.
I recently discovered the pilot for Nobility (on Amazon), which I'd recommend as a sci-fi story that tries to be different. However, despite its all-star cast, I was sad to find out that it never got picked up as a series. It's very campy, very low-budget, like a couple other cheap sci-fi things on Netflix and Amazon. At first my reaction was "ick", then it was "I'm bored", but I kept watching and I became very interested by the end. I realized I wanted more of this. I like high-budget, high-end science fiction just fine, like Star Trek: Discovery or The Orville. But sometimes I want to watch something unchallenging and soothing, the equivalent of baby food.
Starhunter gives me exactly what I was looking for. Be warned! The pilot is the worst episode by far. The rest make much more sense. The second one isn't as good as the others, but after that they quickly increase in quality and scope, with tons of things happening at once in each story.
Each episode so far has been divided with some people on the ship and some on the ground during a mission, but unlike something like Star Trek where the planet and the ship can feel like two completely different A and B stories, in Starhunter the two plots are much more tightly woven together, making a feeling that you're watching one continuous coherent piece of action. This creates a stunning sensation of breadth and unpredictability which I frankly find more exciting than a lot of big name sci-fi which has fancy lights and swearing but keeps the plot underneath far too safe and predictable.
If you're into video games, maybe I could say that instead of this being Star Wars Battlefront or Elite Dangerous, it's more like Evochron Mercenary or the X series of games. Meaning, rough around the edges, unapologetically ugly in the graphics department, but focused more on all the little details, all the little bits and bobs, than its more expensively produced cousins.
Instead of dragging you by the nose and then forcibly directing your eyes to the important attractions, Starhunter trusts you to figure out what you'd like to focus on, out of a menagerie of character traits and world details. It doesn't fight for your attention like modern stuff, it's understated. But I like that better. I never liked being told what parts I should care about (I'm looking at you, Killjoys).
To compare it to other series, I'd say it's a lot like Farscape but with self-contained plots, one for each episode. Farscape started having many-episodes long stories, almost like Dragon Ball Z in how some episodes would focus on a single conversation between hero and villain. None of that here. It's Andromeda but with more action (less likely to fall asleep, at least once you get past the first episodes), Lexx with more focus on actually doing things quickly, Crusade with more interesting situations, Earth: Final Conflict but camper (yes, campier. somehow.). Hopefully those comparisons give you some idea of what to expect.
Now I have to come to terms with knowing that there's never going to be any more of it. :( I didn't realize it was a remastering of one of the 2000s-era shows, I thought it was a complete reboot but in the style of early-2000s shows (including bad 3D scenes for authenticity). I thought it had a chance of being renewed and continuing. Sob. We could use a cheesy series like this in our all-too-serious world some days!
Conclusion: Don't go based on your first impression, second impression, nor your third, fourth, or fifth. Wait until you've come up with a half-dozen or so different reactions to the show. Reserve a weekend and watch at least three episodes. If you still don't like it, shake your fist and curse my review for misleading you. But I hope you'll find something you like. All I know is that I can PROMISE you won't know whether or not you like it until you've seen a few episodes. Expect sci-fi comfort food type fluff, and you won't be disappointed.
Starhunter Redux is totally fluff, but it's the fluffiest fluff I've found yet. :)
The Code (2019)
I hear what everyone is saying, but...
There are some glaring issues here. Improper terminology, rifles with no kickback, improper uniforms. Both the military AND continuity advisors for this show should take a hike. If I were some exec at CBS I'd ask myself - after all I invested in this show, paying the actors, promoting it, and hoping for more than one season, am I really willing to let it die with low to no ratings? CBS person, if I were you, I'd rush to refilm as much of Season 1 as possible and do a big midseason marketing push, SPECIFICALLY to vets to say that accuracy has been redone.
And I do think CBS should do that. But it's also important to remember that this is CBS. I think The Code is about as true to military justice as Bull is true to psychology (every episode in the last season had the exact same plot of Colón turning it around at the last minute!), The Good Fight is to law (especially in Season 2), and Madam Secretary has to being a Secretary of State (which does a lot of good work in getting people talking about important issues).
CBS is a liberal network and The Code is by far the most pro-military conservative show on the network. But it's not going to be perfect. It's like asking someone who failed college math to sub for a professor: you're getting the best they can give. Also, there's the old joke from Family Guy about how CBS's dramas are mostly to help old people fall asleep at night. That remains true here.
I think The Code does one good thing, same as CBS's other dramas, and that's to get people with absolutely no exposure to the real world, to think about these things for maybe the first real time in their lives. Sure, the action scenes in The Code look like toy soldiers acting out a puppet show they're so unrealistic. But the guns are loud, taking up the entirety of what's coming out of the speakers, and the battle zones are portrayed as some of the most dangerous in entertainment that's come out recently. With competition like Star Wars and The Expendables, where the heroes jump into the fray over and over again, The Code probably feels like true grit to the average viewer.
Yes, it's pathetic. Yes, it's watching a Ken doll pretend to be important. Yes, it needs a mid-season reshoot if CBS has any brains and wants this to succeed. CBS, people are upset because they WANT to like this! Please get that. You're creating such a reaction because people WANT to care. Give your own show a chance to come out of this intact!
But even if the way it's filmed doesn't change, I think it's doing a lot to make the average idiot more aware of the challenges that face their friends and neighbors every day. I imagine CBS carefully tuned this and focus-grouped it so that it wouldn't be too upsetting to the average, pampered, sheltered watcher. It's not for veterans, it's for them so they can appreciate what veterans have done without being overloaded. Them's the breaks, for now.