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Reviews
In Our Blood (2023)
Underdeveloped
Here was an opportunity to create an outstanding world class television series comparable to Angels In America and The Normal Heart.
The story is so exulting and unique to Australia, and it's a story the world should know but unfortunately the production is cheap, the development is clearly rushed and you really don't feel for any of the characters.
To call it a Musical is an enormous stretch. Yes, the Greek chorus is a fine idea for a stage production but here it plays out as a group of unconnected voices who... well, they sing.... a bit. I mean, one minute the song is soundtrack and the next minute these people appear singing the last few lines of the song. At first I thought they were lip synching which they might have well have been because it doesn't add to the drama, it merely distracts. Because they are not characters in the show it is hard to feel anything for them.
Tim Draxl as David Westfield steals the screen. You'll get through the series purely for him. Sadly, we don't feel anything when he loses his ex-lover Oscar Leal as Gabe. The writing does not create the kind of intimacy needed for the audience to care.
Characters often repeat themselves, slowing down the pace.
What's most disappointing is the budget. Sure, the LGBTQI+ community are undoubtedly grateful that this series has been made but the scenes with queer activists confronting the police are woefully cheap. Ambitious student films have done it better.
The great shame is that this was an opportunity to show the rest of the world what Australia was made of back in the 80's. Our response to the AIDS crisis was truly unique and life saving but this show is messy, underwhelming and it lacks the necessary production values needed to garner an international audience.
*Also the IMDB credit states that it was shot in Sydney but a lot of the media about the show will tell you otherwise.
Latecomers (2022)
Not quite there
This is a very interesting show that has great international appeal on some levels. Groundbreaking and an extremely bold choice for a television series but there are a few really big blunders in the writing which sadly makes it fall flat. The possibility of an intimate relationship between the disabled male lead Frank, and Sarah the disabled female lead, is a wonderful concept, but the fact that Frank's character is minimalised to the usual, done to death, typical Australian male behaviour is really the shows downfall. He gets drunk on his first date with lovely Sarah and projectile vomits onto her from across the table. Extremely poor choice in representing people with disabilities. The show therefore is using Australian stereotypes to try and make its point. Very poor judgment on the producers behalf. What about the real struggles of dating for disabled people? You think the shows going there but it doesn't. It tries to make itself relevant by regurgitating the old trope of blokes get drunk. The characters who facilitate these young disabled people are also pretty badly flawed. Brandi in particular who is depicted as a strong woman who likes to have many random sex partners? A bit of an insult to disability workers who would not mix their private lives with their work commitments. Ultimately the show is unwatchable and unlikely to break ground internationally which is a shame because it's a daring venture into television and the possibilities were actually endless.
Black Snow (2022)
A mess
The opening scenes set up Travis Fimmel's character Cormack as 'soft on the inside but hard on the outside' but the attempt falls flat, setting up confusion, unconnected to the series at large.
But because he is apparently a well-respected detective, his boss allows him to follow his instincts to Ashford, Queensland to investigate the murder of Islander teenager Isabel Baker, 25-years earlier. Now, in 2019, a bunch of buried envelopes are uncovered from a school project right before Isabel's death. Chloe Walcott declares that the project was Isabel's idea but when we go to flashback we find out that it was the teacher's idea, not connecting what the audience have previously been told. The plausibility of these characters looking exactly the same as they did 25 years earlier and their memories so completely accurate of the time makes the whole show sink into tedious depths. Perhaps they should have gone for 10 years not 25? The dialogue is pretty bad, pedestrian and boring, throwing in some old Aussie diatribes (for the male audience perhaps) like - she was a "cranky girl on her period" and "She was as hot and bothered as a virgin on her wedding night." Seriously, was there a female producer anywhere near these scripts? Then the old cop also has a perfectly good memory of what happened to Isabel 25 years before, down to remembering her movements on the night of her death? So Cormack retraces the steps, expecting to find something from 25 years ago on a dirt road? Sure, these days a cold case can be solved but the way the writer tries to establish this is insincere and implausible. And you'd think with Cormack's investigative prowess he'd be doing more than wandering around the town in Episode 3 still asking people "What was she like?" Yes, you guessed it, it becomes a soap opera. There is no pace and dreadful acting and every time the story seems to be picking up another character is introduced, not adding to the drama but setting it off track. The show gets very lost, you stop caring because it is trying too hard to be another mysterious Mystery Road completely neglecting the importance of the story-telling. Fans of Travis Kimmel will love this show but his understated acting also comes off as lacklustre and hardly the detective you'd trust with a vital investigation. His broodiness and his love of the camera hardly amount to an engaging leading character and what good is murder mystery when his character doesn't reveal any unique techniques in his investigating? Curious that the show boasts input from the South Sea Island community when the first experience we have of them is in a church, highlighting the many Islander communities brainwashing into Christianity. Apart from women sitting around doing some handiwork it reveals nothing much about the Islander culture until the end by which time it's too late to care.
Seriously Red (2022)
Misguided
Starts so well. It's genuinely laugh out loud funny for the first hour but the story gets washed away and the tedium sets in. Such a shame. Full of fresh faces and established international actors one really wonders what went on. The writing, initially quite brilliant, becomes a painstaking attempt for laughs. It just doesn't sustain. The directing becomes woeful but without a solid script it's no wonder. There's no momentum whatsoever. Despite "Dolly's" rise to appearing on a Hong Kong stage, we are suddenly thrown back into her dreary Australian life. Bobby Cannavale's talents are wasted, as are most of the actors. It had genuine potential but sadly fell flat.
Irreverent (2022)
Crime/Drama/Comedy/Dramedy/RomCom???? All of these but not remotely entertaining
This show doesn't know what it is. Opening on Queensland's sunny Gold Coast where crocodiles don't actually jump out of the water and eat people, a wedding party is disrupted when the priest is eaten by a croc. This attempt at comedy is pretty appalling. It tries to capture the brilliance of iconic Australian comedy films like Muriel's Wedding but fails abysmally at that. Suddenly we jump to Chicago USA to an unoriginal "crime mob" scene in a parking lot where everyone dies bar one. We are left with the vague hint that the mafia man who survives will go to Australia and take over the job of the recently deceased priest. This show is really pathetic. What a waste of money and talented actors. Makes you wonder if anyone at Netflix read the script before it went into production.