Reviews

Season 4 rating: 7.5/10

The season has an excellent premise, great cast and acting, good characters, and atmosphere (though the latter is really easy to achieve in this setting). It's still got its flaws, but it keeps your interest, even if the ending is a little bit underwhelming.

Things to appreciate:

• the acting is obviously great, and not just by Jodie Foster. John Hawkes is particularly great as the utterly miserable Hank Prior, Fiona Shaw gives Twin Peaks vibes, Kali Reis is very good for the part she has, generally there isn't one sub-par performance.

• any murder/supernatural mystery set in the Arctic night works. That's just a fact

• I personally appreciated the slow-ish pace, the clear but not over-shouted environmental message, the feminist undertones, all that stuff

• The fact that the resolution of the case did not require (though it heavily implied) the supernatural

Things that didn't work:

• Ghosts. I didn't mind the existence of the supernatural element, but the setting calls for something very different than 'ghosts of loved ones'. You have ancient ice caves. Summon a Great Old One from the depths of the Earth; or at least find an indigenous goddess to refer to, don't just throw vague references and ghosts of relatives: this is not the place.

• I get the appeal, but not every lead investigator needs to be a poorly mannered brute with a dead kid in their past.

• Lastly, and this bothers me: as much as I like the growing representation and recognition of indigenous people and cultures, and of their plights in tv series, I do not appreciate the 'bad scientists / good housewifes who talk to spirits' dichotomy. Firstly, you are trying to have an environmental message and you end up portraying the scientists (not even the mine company!) as the villains. Secondly, and this happens in every similar plot, no one even considers for a split second the dilemma: is this research/discovery worth this price? Cause you know what, based on what we are told, it kind of might be worth it, and nobody cares.

All in all, if you are into these darker mysteries (and this does get pretty damn dark at times, not just literally), True Detective Season 4 is worth your time. Unless you are a bizarre cultist of season 1, for whatever reason, who cannot help but constantly whine like a banshee about some imaginary betrayal of some non-existing principle. Which, by the way, could be a decent plot for a future season.

Of course nothing of what Assane does was ever plausible, but the plans he hatced were clever enough to let you enjoy the ride. In the first two episodes of the 3rd season though, the effort of the writers to outdo themselves backfires, as it becomes more and more obvious that everything in his plans depends on literally everybody being extremely bad at their job. And that's not even considering all the things that could very well go wrong even if the plan works, or how he doesn't even try much with disguises any more.

The characters are still fun, and the plot with the kindapping of his mother adds some more stakes, but if Lupin keeps depending on things like the police not actually checking if the guy is dead because an actual doctor got fooled by a fake stethoscope and got scared of a random fake doctor pulling rank on him (????), it's going to go downhill.

The problem with this spinoff/sequel of Castlevania is that it looks a lot like the first show, but is just less good.

The setting seems like a fabulous idea: against the backdrop of the French Revolution, the (vampire) nobility seeks to fight back, with the aid of the local clergy. But if you are hoping to see the Incorruptible Robespierre sending the undead to the guillotine, you will be sorely disappointed; the Revolution is nothing but a backdrop, a minor plot device to justify a couple of decisions without being used to even a fraction of its potential (at least in this season 1).

The rest of the story is not bad, except the characters don't support it; you got a newer, far less interesting Belmont (who happens to get powers, which he instantly knows how to use, exactly when convenient); a few sorceresses none of whom are forgettable, but neither are they particularly interesting (the former slave might have potential, but her backstory is just so generic); a forgemaster who is at least five steps down from the first series' forgemasters (especially Isaac was such a fantastic character); and lastly you have a supervillain who just doesn't convince: Erszebet Bathory. Except it's not the Hungarian Countess, it's a person with an eastern European accent who is also...Egyptian? The Goddess Sekhmet (I have no idea why) except in fact much closer to a Thundercat? It simply makes no sense - they wanted a vampire name of some renown, so ok, Countess Bathory, who else? But they also needed a villain even bigger than Dracula, and she just didn't cut it, so they thought ok, let's make her a God. And just threw everything together in the mix, except none of the ingredients fit. I was also not too happy with the voice acting, although that may be the somewhat random accents and again, comparison to the previous Castlevania. To be fair, I watched half the episodes at a low volume.

There are some redeeming features to the plot and character weaknesses - Orlox the gay Aztec vampire plays the role of villain who is actually not a villain quite well (although he turns into a dragon, not the most Aztec-y thing?), Grandpa Belmont adds some pizazz to the mix, and the redeemed Night Creature (as well as the use of music) is a beautiful touch.

Overall, worth watching but god I hope Robespierre brings the Terror next season.

The Orville's greatest accomplishment is that it manages to capture the spirit of Star Trek. It has the necessary ethical dilemmas and analogies to parallel humanity's current conundrums and problems, and in most cases it approaches them thoughtfully. It also manages to have distinct races, which follow known tropes but are not carbon copies. And its own cast of characters is as a rule memorable, fun and with good chemistry.

Still, I do feel the series misses a chance to be more. At first glance it's a perfect homage to -primarily- Star Trek, with a very light touch of spoof. But as many reviewers have noted, it's so good at it that it practically becomes Star Trek, a fascimile rather than an homage.

Is that bad? Not really. But with the notable exception of the transporters, Seth McFarlane does not stop to rethink any of the silly tropes, many of which were put there out of necessity and could be avoided nowadays, especially when what you are doing is not in fact Star Trek. What I mean is, I understand it's hard to avoid a omnipotent and selective translator, it would be too much trouble, but I would like for the series to treat the field of medicine as a real thing, rather than doctors again being people with a magic glowing stick. I would like to hear so much less Treknobablle - sure, I can stomach a rare 'reverse the polarity' as a nod to times gone by, but do you really need to constantly 'divert power to the deflectors', detect 'spatial anomalies' and my personal bête noire 'losing structural integrity', as if structural integrity is a flux quantity, or gas? Personally I would also like a little more comedy, because it does work (in the case of the Isaac-Claire romance it is the only aspect that works) very well when it's there.

There are also some ways in which the series shoots itself on the foot: you cannot present the Kaylon plot as a twist (and it could have been) after making them so obvious a reference to Cylons.

However, I also have to applaud the show for taking some difficult decisions - the storylines might all feel familiar but the Orville does not always pick the obvious resolution, and often opts for the harder, more realistic, and dramatically more powerful path.

The 3rd season's episodes are super-long, which I don't mind, so there are multiple storylines. Expectedly, some work better than others.

The John - Talla affair makes for decent comic relief for the episode. The negotiations with the Janisi also work as a secondary storyline, even though it is a bit of a stretch to suggest this civilisation knew nothing about the social hierarchy of the Union.

The two main storylines are interconnected: the crew discovers a reformed Kaylon who can feel - the best part, and perhaps underutilised, is the flashbacks from when "Timmis" was a slave. This backstory was powerful, and it does feel like it could have been an entire episode all on its own. Certainly I would have preferred that over the overused and unnecessary trope of 'robot wants (or at least is asked) to be a real boy'. I am not simply questioning why the robot would ever accept, even as a favour: you have a character who is fundamentally different, superior in mind and body, exactly because it is a machine. Suggesting that it would be, in any way, an improvement for this character to demean themselves to the level of a human is just an instant "No" from me - too anthropocentric, science fiction ought to embrace the value of unimaginably different types of existence, not blatantly suggest the human paradigm is best. What's worse, it is suggested that being able to experience emotions immediately turns Isaac into some kind of "singing in the rain" character - why so cheesy? For example, I think it would be more reasonable if the procedure had failed because the only thing Isaac felt was anger, hatred, fear. For that matter, Timmis should certainly be said to have started from that point, even if during the year he spent being rehabilitated he was changed.

All in all, this does nothing to add any spark to the anyway uninteresting romance between Isaac and Claire - a plot that would have much more potential if the doctor was not a stock character. As expectable as it was, I was glad we didn't stick to the cheesy beyond belief humanised Isaac.

I might be wrong, but the impression i got was not that the writers went for an "oh, he's schizophrenic" ending. That said, I am not sure what exactly they did go for: My take was that Magne gave the Ragnarok battle in his head and had to let go of his divinity and powers to accept the new order and make peace.

If that is the case, I call it a decent if underwhelming ending. If I am wrong and the whole appearance of the comics and the toy hammer indicate that he was indeed hallucinating this whole time, then I redact 4-5 stars from my rating as this would not only be a ridiculous and unjustifiable ending dramatically speaking*, but the resolution where he just realises all on his own that none of it is true and everything goes back to normal is a rather poor representation of mental illness to begin with.

* such a 'twist' can work only if you look back at events and realise for instance that "oh, they have been building towards this from the start, because e.g. We didn't see Fior feed anyone to the monster, this was just Magne's conclusion", or "the only times when god/giant stuff is discussed is when Magne is present". This NEVER happens, on the contrary, we see the rest of the supernatural beings discuss the issue ALL the time, we see Fior, Lauritz and Jens interact with the serpent independently, etc. Therefore I refuse to believe the writers were THAT sloppy.

Devs is very, very well made. From the cinematography to the music, to the use of sound, to the acting (well, maybe not the lead, but that recital by Stephen McKinley Henderson is sublime).

But while the execution is great and the concept is at times fascinating, the problem is that it's also so glaringly wrong: not in a nitpicky sort of way, but exactly because it tries to be just correct enough to make sense. So it suggests a more or less plausible (at least to suspend disbelief) mechanism of 'prediction' but then never answers the most obvious question: how could their machine ever have enough data to do what it does? That's just skipped over - I know there is no good answer that could be given so it's best that none is, but it's such an obvious problem with what it proposes. Then, it (seems so far that it) argues for both a deterministic universe AND a multiple worlds interpretation at the same time; and of course, it makes the classic film/series blunder of reducing infinite worlds/outcomes to two. In this episode for example, Lyndon is told he will balance on the ledge, to prove he is right about the multiple-world interpretation, because in the universes he lives, he is accepted back into Devs (or something, it was not a very convincing argument to throw your life for). Except of course, there isn't a number of possible universes where he falls and another set of them where he doesn't; there are also universes he refuses to do it. There are also infinite universes where he, and all life anywhere, simply doesn't exist, but in any case, NOT doing it is what would prove the many-worlds. Conversely, doing exactly what he is told he will do suggests that the many-worlds interpretation is wrong and this is the ONLY possible outcome - but that does not seem to be what the series is suggesting, based on how the scene is shot. Arguably, the very fact of seeing what happens means "the wavefunction has collapsed", and the experiment has been ruined. Lastly, I hope the last episode explains what Forest actually wants, because so far everything he has worked towards is really not that much more than watching home videos.

That said, it's still a great episode; but I think overall judgment needs to wait for the finale.

There's always been a little Twilight Zone in Black Mirror, but that is just about all I can say to justify this episode's existence in the series.

Much like the Loch Henry episode, it is a rather generic, VERY well made but predictable (I guessed "werewolf", and I suppose I was not alone) episode that has absolutely nothing to do with the black mirror concept. Is that bad? Well, not necessarily, but imagine watching an episode of the Twilight Zone, to continue this analogy, that turns out to have nothing supernatural or otherworldly in it. What's the point?

So it's understandably disappointing, especially considering the very long time between black mirror seasons. Still, objectively the episode is by no means bad, though it in fact never tries to put any spin to its theme.

As a finale, Endgame gathers all the ingredients it can to be successful: The Borg, a way home, time travel, even some Klingons, the most woefully absent element from the series (B'Elanna barely counts as a Klingon). Unfortunately, it also brings to the table all that has been problematic with the show too, first and foremost the fact that Janeway is a captain taking some very, very questionable decisions.

When the episode is compelling in the questions it asks (e.g. Tuvix), I don't care how profoundly wrong the decision taken is; here however, time travel opens a can of worms, as it so often does, which is why they should really, really stop making time travel episodes unless they have something really good at hand. I mean, Janeway plans to go back in time and speed up the voyage home, in order to save her favourite crew members. Why stop there? Why not go back to the very start and prevent Voyager from getting stranded (maybe this is as far back as she could go, which is of course a bit convenient). But in any case, she is willing to UNDO 26 years. And some of the people who lived these 26 years are like "sure, ok, I have no problem with you erasing my life, and everybody else's, just because you like Seven". This is a bit too much to accept for the sake of the plot. Especially when you actually remember the rest of the series: Admiral Janeway laments Captain Janeway's decisions, but both seem to forget there are at least 2 Q-centred episodes where they gained the gratitude of the Q Continuum and then just forgot to ask that they be taken home through their divine powers.

As for the Prime Directive(s), I stopped caring long ago - nobody ever respects them, it's a wonder this Federation still exists when no one obeys its fundamendal laws.

Other than that, there is also the question of the Borg; for one thing, I feel the tendency to make the Borg Queen, of all things, gullible, naive and impulsive, vastly undermines the Collective as a villain. As does the fact that throughout the years, they are more and more beatable. The appeal of the Borg is not simply the hive mind conception, but the fact they are a terrible, almost unstoppable foe; a foe you need to run away from as fast as you can, rather than be able to blow up with 'transphasic torpedoes' and such thingamajings.

Of course, this is a show that finished in 2001: while I would rather see the entire temporal rescue effort fail and the original timeline kept, that would be too much to ask at the time. All in all, the episode does provide closure to the series, and it has its moments (dementia-Tuvoc for example, although any emotional investment there is gone since you know, time travel). But despite its truly great premise and with the exception of a few excellent episodes, Voyager stands certainly lower compared to TNG or DS9.

My take on the first season was "generally enjoyable, but that's a very goofy premise". This second season sort of tries to give some more context, sometimes successfully, sometimes not: the connection between virus and "hybrids" is given, and well, it's up to the viewer to decide whether that's enough.

The positive of the season is the more time afforded to the Last Men - the negative is that, try as it might, the show fails to convince you that the Last Men are the problem. I mean, I am sorry, but humanity is in palpable danger of extinction, and General Abbott, this Rob Halford of survivors, is literally the only one who gives a damn. Is finding a cure worth experimenting on and killing the hybrid children? No - there has to be a better way, but in the face of actual extinction, this is not a clear-cut dilemma. And if it is clear-cut for the zoo-keeper mother and Big Man, how is it so for Birdie? There are flash-backs that show you that Birdie, a scientist directly involved in the project that killed billions, is told from the very start of the pandemic that the special child is special and holds the key to a cure. And what does she do? NOTHING. She lies and hides. "Who the hell cares? I will allow hundreds of millions, billions of people, to die, rather than maaaaybe risk that one kid I decided is mine." And we are expected to like this character because it's "his mom"? HELL NO. She is 1000 times the Nazi that General Abbott is.

A similar problem exists with the doctor Singh storyline: he, at least, cares, even if his main motivation is not to save the species, but a blend of the cliches of 'scientist obsessed with a project' and 'guy does everything to save wife'. However, his wife doesn't care for a cure. And while it's perfectly understandable that she is tired and cannot stomach what keeping her alive requires, the entire issue is shown as if this is just about her - it's not. You do not want the cure, but does that give you the right to demand that a cure is never made? Also, all season long I expected that she would be shaken to the core by the presence of elephant boy, given how much we see that Ganesha statue, but nope, it wasn't even implied that this played a role.

There are some other issues too: like the bit at the start where Wendy tells us that part of the reason they have developed a sign language is that not all hybrids have the capacity of speech - logical given their animal heads - except that then every single one can, at least a little: elephant? Can talk; hedgehog? Can talk; groundhog(?)? Can talk; crocodile? Yep, even him. Or how an entire squadron of soldiers is defeated by a few Home Alone traps (there is an entire forest, but the bad guys step into every single booby trap) and very special deer boy is also able to summon bisons, because hell, he might as well, right?

4 stars for General Abbott, 1 for Big Man, who remains likeable, zero for the rest.

Perhaps the tone of the season should be more uniform as this indeed seems bizarre following the Duel, but I think the episode was not bad for a younger audience.

One particular aspect I liked was that it actually subverted expectations and the singer fellow (did he have a name? I forget) never used that lightsaber despite some fake build-ups - because this was not the point here. Just enough to hint at a background for the character, but moving past the jedi necessities.

The song was so and so - at first it seemed cringey but then it kind of proved ok-ish. In any case, you have to applaud the existence of a Hutt guitarist (bassist? Again, I forget), and the first (?) appearance of rock(ish) music in SW.

First of all, a lot of people seem confused with this series - none of this is canon or supposed to be even in the same timelines/settings as the rest of SW. It's just variations on a theme, if you will, with creative license to do whatever they want.

And boy, do they go full anime-bananas here. Which might have worked if the episode had a story or a point, but it really doesn't. The start seems to have some promise - I thought ok, twin ships, dark side twins, they've never met right? Well, no. The idea goes to the fascinating depth of 'they are born of the dark side so they will use dark energy to power a death star-like weapon'. This is literally like spelling out a JJ Abrams idea, and the only saving grace is that this is just a 10 minute cartoon.

The resulting fight might have been fun if you are into this kind of anime battle scene, except it is so distracting that they are standing, breathing, moving, without suits on the outside surface of a spaceship. True; the brief scene where the droid is wearing a space suit addresses the absurdity and deserves a chuckle, but it's still so damn stupid. The dynamic between the two main characters is also barely existent, and at least the english dub, despite the high profile names, rather bad (not helped by the rather bad dialogue).

I don't know if it is because the story was meant to go on longer (it certainly deserved to) but although the series ends decently, in the sense it provides an ending without leaving anything open*, there are certainly some things that had so much more potential.

The primary among them being that let's be honest, the communists should have won - they are the good guys here (actually no; they are the far less bad guys here), and the issue is not so much that they lose, but the very rushed and unconvincing 'and so because Philo prevented a bloodbath in parliament, the entire racist capitalist society took steps to the right direction'. If anything, Eleonora-Lenin deserved much better. And Agreus, the slave-trader class traitor, deserved much worse. I am sad he survived.

The show to its credit never took a clear side, but in the end (and probably due to the need to provide a finale) it does feel like it reinforces the obvious lie that armed struggle doesn't work, but working together with the oppressor might. Pity, because otherwise Carnival Row remains to the end a magnificent show, with great acting (even ACAB-sample Dombey managed to sell his character change), blurred morality, serious issues and social commentary and great visuals.

*though there is a certain hole in the plot, with the Sparas suddenly being not so hard to kill, and more importantly, with how it flies from parliament to the Row, while Philo, on foot, catches up with it one minute later.

The episode in itself is very good - it provides closure over the loss of Kanan, some great visuals, it features the return of Ahsoka, Palpatine, an interesting Imperial in the shape of Hydan, and the blend of voices from across all the Star Wars years, including Alec Guiness, is touching.

What I personally do not really like is the lore aspect of it - I was not a big fan of the Mortis gods and the implication of their existence in Clone Wars either (I thought those episodes were also very good but prophecies and chosen ones are a no-no), so I am not sure about their indirect presence here. And continuity-wise, if this portal / world between worlds existed all this time in a Jedi temple, well, it creates more questions than it answers. I also don't see why just closing the portal results in the total destruction of the temple - this is a rather lazy resolution. But in any case, I think the story serves its purpose for the show, and at the very least justifies why Lothal is important, better than 'there is a big factory here'.

There is a lot I can tolerate in Star Wars. Space wizards, instantaneous communication across light years, etc. I get it, it's not the Arthur Clarke school of science fiction. But when Ezra was in the vacuum of space in his pyjamas (yeah yeah, "jumpsuit") and a bicycle helmet (which he lost for a while), I was shouting at the screen. Granted, the bad guy lived on an asteroid wearing a t shirt, like some kind of disturbing insect Little Prince. It cannot be that hard to have the characters wear space suits once in a while. How hospitable (or existing) can the atmosphere of an asteroid be?

It's a pity because otherwise the space whales were cute, and the message nice despite being too obvious.

The Mandalorian recipe worked nearly to perfection during the first two seasons, so I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it seems to be heading headlong into the exact same direction, which is beginning to become tiring.

Mando has to return to Mandalore for redemption ritual, etc. Ok, good. That seems interesting. But wait! We need to insert random and frankly barely convincing side quest #1: find thingamajing in order to re-introduce IG-11, because the story can't really move forward till the last couple of episodes.

Is this formula still necessary? Shouldn't we try to move the story a little bit this time? I don't know, I feel like that would be good, especially since it's been a while.

That's not the only issue to be honest: the exposition mechanism with Mando telling Grogu stuff is very lazy, and the video game-like sequence with the fight against the pirates, including an explanation of the "controls", looked very much like an advertisement for some smartphone game app. I hope it's not the case.

The thing is, the series still has so much potential to expand SW lore, but I think it's definitely time to change the formula and focus on the main plot. What's more, after a show like Andor (mainly) you come to expect something a little bit more than "cute Grogu - cool Mando" - some higher stakes, some greater picture. But let's see - it's still early.