Reviews

What a fantastic show. The visuals and alien costumes are really bad and it takes a while to find your feet and then you find yourself swept up into a saga you will never forget.

You, my brothers and sisters in sci fi, will find yourself awed by these overacting characters in these absurd costumes and unattractive uniforms well before the journey is complete.

This is what I love about sci fi, the story can be as vast and complex as you can imagine. We are so lucky we are not shackled to scheduled tv, I can't imagine trying to keep track of this in the days of yore when it was made.

Stick with it at least until episode 18 and understand you are being introduced to the pieces and positions of a chess board during all those typical season 1 episodic episodes.

My view is a reboot will be a rewriting - many of the political topics call out things learnt after WWII that are re-emerging today.

It's a rare for a comedy series to have good rewatch value but Samantha Who always makes me laugh out loud. It's easy to watch and you can tell there's a bit of adlibbing here and there, or at least there was a lot of fun going on around the writers' table and on set.

The premise is a great one - a woman wakes up with amnesia- and they play with it to the max. It's intelligent, fun, always classy. There's a few subplots I am not into, in particular the various boyfriend ones, but to skip them because of that is a mistake because they're packed full of laughs despite that. The mother and father and the ex-boss (Chase Chapman) are hilarious in their support roles, as well as the best friends.

It's difficult to pick favourites but the Pilot, The Dog, The Hockey date, Out of Africa, The Pill, The Car, The Restraining Order, So I think I can dance ...anyway you get the picture.

I've been watching them for years on and off (have them in my apple library). I was very sick a few years ago and bed bound, not knowing if I would survive and this show never failed to raise a smile from me and take my mind off the fight long enough to recoup some spirit. I pray Christina Applegate will always find something to make her smile in turn.

I found this to be a really special movie. The setting, WWII London, is dramatic, the story is not. I have known people who grew up there during the war and have shared their stories with me and they are told the same way - it is the small moments of laughter, beauty and joy that helped them 'get on with it' amidst the all the bombing and hardships of war.

It's a lyrical tribute to childhood, told the way we remember childhood, in vignettes, because we do not know what is significant and what is not at that age, we are observers and are protected by our parents and other adults, context and consequences are things we are still learning.

I watched this movie because of some of the positive comments here and am glad I did.

I read some of the negative reviews before writing this review and I would have been really disappointed had the story turned by using typical dramatic points and emotional brutality they would like to see to make a 'story'. The change in tone as the location is moved towards the end is representative of the experience of the time too, as many children were sent out of London as the war dragged on.

The story here is that children are not necessarily desensitised by conflict when the adults work to maintain decency and civilised life - that childhood can still be a magical and joyous time. Also some are negative reviews by people who obviously didn't watch it eg someone wrote 'well Boorman never xxxx like Billy did in the movie so bla bla' when that didn't happen, which they would know if they finished watching that very scene.

The actors were all fantastic. Costumes were wonderful. Sets and locations were great. I could go on and on, but it's better if you just make a pot of tea and sit down and relax and watch it I think.

Someone asked what the music was that kept playing, the big band song? It is "In the mood".

I enjoyed this, it reminded me of the sort of spy novels that were written in the 1970s, like The Little Drummer Girl and The Bourne Identity. The fun is in the journey, leading to an outlandish climax, but all nicely wrapped up in the end. These sort of books rarely translate well to screen in my opinion, because the films and mini-series don't capture the pacing and tension of a good, holiday, page-turner, but this film did that well (and with no car chases thank heavens) - and that's what I'm after when I watch something like this.

I watched it as a mini series on prime but completed it in one sitting.

Great bit of fun, kept interesting with the historical and social context and with Russian and Latvian locations.

I tried to watch this because Prince Harry used to be a bit of a lad, known for his sense of humour and the grandson of a truly great woman.

Right off the bat things were said that were obviously inaccurate (at best) and the woman interviewing (Oprah Winfrey) never followed up with questions or clarifications or anything. For example they discussed a secret wedding with just an archbishop - yet UK has ancient laws about marriage (eg not allowed after dark) including a requirement for witnesses. From memory Oprah Winfrey raised her eyebrows and just said 'really?' (don't directly quote me on that, that might have been some other varied recollection, but you get my drift...). My father was married in California so I know they require at least one witness there, and Canadian marriage law is based on UK law and Meghan Markle has been married at least a couple of times. I found it all very irritating thinking "wait, what?" every couple of minutes.

I saw Oprah Winfrey on a 30 Rock episode and she was hilarious, but I wasn't sure if this was meant to be a comedy or not. It all came across rather awkwardly and poorly paced.

The characters weren't very likeable or believable and the male lead kept popping in and out depending on what they were discussing.

It soon elicited responses of 'Oh, come onnn' in our house and so was turned off so I didn't see the entire show.

Because we didn't get to see all of it we have bought a biography of Meghan Markle by renowned biographer and lawyer Tom Bowers. A great page turner and it'll definitely make you laugh out loud time and time again.

I selected my dog because his name is Apollo - this gives an indication of what a BSG fan I am.

So trust me when I say if, like I was, you are after more BSG you won't find it here. It's a bit of a rambling mess really and doesn't even begin to answer its own questions, (which I guess is why people were disappointed at its cancellation), let alone the questions you might have from BSG.

If you know that, and stick with Caprica, its a slow but ok show with some very interesting concepts (which don't connect with BSG, they just sort of 'could connect eventually' but really seem to be heading off on tangents).

Eric Stolz and the actor who plays his wife give good performances, I didn't know he was such a capable actor until I watched Caprica.

Zoe. Urrgh. But I guess this violent psychopath explains unevolved Cylon nastiness.

The intro gets really annoying because its nothing like what you encounter in the show.

Overall - an exercise in frustration but still worth it if you watch your expectations. I liked it a lot more the second time I watched it.

I was looking forward to Wheel of Time because I had heard good things about the books. I watched 3 episodes, so I gave 3 stars but I wouldn't waste my time on it if I had my time over.

There were no characters I cared about and the whole 'oh there's this really special person with a mission' story telling has gone really wrong somewhere along the line, its become one dimensional, like learn to read children's books. This character good, everything else bad/incompetent/old fashioned/useless - which is weird because fantasy and swords stories should be all about the complex infrastructure the hero / heroine needs to navigate, seeking worthy allies, overcoming strong entrenched opponents. It must be propaganda. I'm off to rewatch the 2011 King Arthur series Camelot instead.

I love Babylon 5 - every time I start watching it I think "What? Why do I like this again? It looks so lame" and then 3 episodes in I'm bingeing it and won't watch anything else for the next few months until I'm done.

B5 throws out a number of surprising episodes, this is one of them. Steve's stim problem: he and the writers do a remarkable job of making him increasingly stubborn, self righteous and unlikeable as he descends into addiction and takes on the traits that addiction causes. Unfortunately the result is that many get irritated at the whole subplot without recognising it's because they do such a good job of it.

Luckily during unlikeable Steve era, we get this episode. Erica Gimpel's voice is as smooth as silk with a beautiful timbre. RANT: I don't understand why she only has one album out. She's gorgeous and it's always lovely to see her pop up, but I wish she would stop wasting her time on bit parts and run with her singing. I seriously think the world is missing out on something special, and I say this as a lifelong opera goer, eclectic music listener and accomplished musician - not a teenage pop fan type. I didn't know who she was but when I asked other people if they had heard of her they all immediately said "of course, Coco, from Fame" and I live on the other side of the world from the US, so its not like there's no base to leverage. R&B, Jazz, Gospel... Lady, whatever you put out I will buy and follow on streaming services!

Pretending I never read Asimov, comparing to other Sci Fi Tv shows I'm giving this a 9/10. Only the last episode really annoyed me and that only on Terminus. I'm glad I watched it, visually it was superb and it touched on some of the questions that draw us to this genre - the questions we love to see explored, even if it was just teasing us here.

Sure there was a lot of visual derivation but I never mind that, as long as overall it adds to the collective lexicon of 'what space travel looks like' I enjoy it and I thought this added as much as Aliens or the Expanse did.

Sure there were expected 'blah blah' social engineering aspects to this but Gaal was the only character consistently drawing groans in our household, a mathematical genius with histrionic personality disorder - right. Try counting some primes before flying off the handle maybe? Or just go full raw realism and add in some hand flapping. I liked Hardin in general and the gender swap was ok. I think the reason people are complaining is the number of bad sci-fi leaps (otherwise known as 'it's magic!' - for example don't have her say she doesn't know how to fly a simple freighter if you are going to have her taking on a far more complex, mysterious craft next time I come back with a cup of tea). Also aspects of her romance just made me wonder why include that, it just excludes children from watching.

There were times when politically/culturally it sailed very close to just being insulting to intelligence, not to mention so much awkwardness, but it manages to pull back to story in most cases. I don't need to say anything about that, plenty of other reviews have covered it.

Jared Harris. What can I say. Put this guy in anything and I will watch it, here, have my money.

I was pleasantly surprised at the journey the actor who played Brother Day took me on, I imagine that would have taken some courage as an actor to take on such a marionette role.

Regarding gender swaps, I want to specifically mention Demarzel being female. I believe this was one that actually brought something new to the table. Personally I found myself wondering about the robot dilemma from a shifted perspective - and for this television version it tied in nicely with the Genetic Dynasty with her as a sort of mother figure.

As sci fi fan and gamer I know it can be tempting to downgrade productions the closer they get to excellent because of high expectations - it is a bit like the Uncanny Valley- but ultimately it can lead to people not bothering to make anything more than 'magic in space' shows that none of us would even look at to complain about.

There is a lot of scope to explore Asimov's universe and the universal questions about humans that sci fi asks and it would be great if Foundation ended up being 'series one' and it went exploring some of the deeper questions it touched on - but its not going anywhere if everyone reviewing is just expressing their frustrations at lack of purity and the annoying made for children teenage superhero aspects.

I enjoyed it, and am going to watch it again.

Seasons 1 and 2 are fantastic, season 3 is good.

These are stories about people, with all their flaws, their self-interests and self concern - so of course politics and internal politics play a large role.

Season 1 is very long, but it is worth continuing to pay attention.

My problem by season three is Sarah should have learnt a lesson by now, you can't really put this all down to a character flaw and circumstance.

I am halfway through season 5. I don't usually watch crime shows, but I wanted to watch a neo-western. I was looking for something laidback without brutalising gore. Although I'm probably not the typical audience for a show like this, there may be others like me so here goes...

I thoroughly enjoyed seasons 1 and 2 (10/10) they were just what I was after. I loved seeing the countryside, the range of characters and the tensions between them and the crimes and mysteries were represented sensitively.

From season three, things got a little heavier and now in season 5 I am finding myself feeling traumatised after each episode. It reminds me of the book Dangerous Liaisons where you are slowly drawn in to something and find yourself in a place you never thought you would be. The countryside seems to have changed too, somewhere along the line we moved Absaroka County to Arizona? I will finish watching season 5 and 6 because I am a completionist and because I like the main characters (with the exception of Henry who lacks depth) but I can't binge this and am pretty disappointed that they just keep upping the ante in terms of full on 'emotional impact' of crime victim representation.

If you like typical crime shows you may enjoy the later seasons 3, 4 and 5 much more than 1 and 2. Most of the characters continue to develop as we learn more about them and even many minor characters, like the woman who plays Rosie and Branch's uncle, are played very well.

So in summary - if you are looking for the great outdoors, manly men in a show that's not sexist and small arms its worth watching the early seasons, if you like dramatic crime shows it's worth sticking around for the later seasons.

Just terrible in my view - HOWEVER if you liked the game Andromeda you will probably love this.

I am a big Sci Fi and Katee Sackhof (Battlestar Galactica, Longmire) fan so I watched all of season one and a few season two episodes hoping they might start employing some writers who knew what they were doing, or maybe even scientific or aero/naval/military/project manager/anything at all really consultants or maybe even someone who had read a story before- but it never happened.

There was a decent premise and it all looked great - but you need a story, characters to care about and a modicum of realism about science, engineering, how things work and how workplaces operate - then go ahead and transgress. Here everyone is just running around cross-contaminating things, burning things up and screwing up the computer systems like some badly run cafe staffed entirely with troubled undergraduates paid in grandiose job titles - both in space and back on earth.

I persisted with the episodes I did play because I wanted Netflix to record data that people do watch sci fi but by the beginning of season 2 I found myself thinking they had decided to make it a satire...

Fringe is fantastic. It was peak TV - however it is complex and requires attention. Plots thread their way through 4 seasons (from about 1/3 of season 1 on) and then season 5 ( a half season made for the fans) ties everything up.

It is intricately crafted, fast paced and operatic in scope.

I made an account to write this because I have been reading a number of low rating reviews here and am astonished at such crowing foolishness. Notice they are written by people who admit they watched only one or a few episodes, and even an episode here and there across different seasons. This is like randomly opening a page here and there of Vanity Fair or Tom Jones, then rather than admitting "I wouldn't know quite honestly" they gush 'opinion'.

The first series is more standard episodic tv (which is not my thing) and the larger themes and plots only began to emerge as assurance for future series developed - however aspects of even these early episodes are selectively swept up into the larger arcs over time.

I'm STEM and I have not enjoyed scifi so much since I was a child and first discovered Dr WHO books. This is to say nothing of the humour, the themes, the perfectly crafted scenes, the superb use of the unknowns in Walter's past, the constantly shifting ground of what we know and what we don't and the exploration of our humanity and relationships.

I own all series and watch through every year or two and always find something to delight and challenge me.

I know it is available on Prime right now. If you are not sure whether this sort of thing is for you I suggest dipping your toes in with one of 'And Those We've Left Behind' (Season 4 ep 6), 'White Tulip' (Season 2 ep 18) or 'The Firefly (Season 3 ep 10) because they will give you a good sense of what Fringe is exploring, even though you will have a lot of questions about what's going on (though that is the aim of every episode lol).

Enjoy!