Reviews

Aaah, the long awaited BQoJ arrived. We could have waited a bit, longer while the set/costume/makeup and script people did their homework properly and took a bit more time over some small. But VERY important details. Like:

1. A 1952 Ford truck could NOT have been used in 1942.

2. The British uniforms were totally wrong. A British officer (no matter how malevolent) would not dress like that.

3. The wine bottles used in 1942 were not bought off the shelf from SuperSol.

4. The "English" actresses were, sorry, awful: bad accents, looking like rejects from "Bridgerton" central casting.

BTW, Luna is drop-dead gorgeous, so there's that. Also not bad on creating the world dof 1942 - sort of. Nice try guys, but it' comes across more like a film school first project rather than a quality Netflix series.

Hmmm...intriguing and held our attention for quite a few episodes, basically anticipating a umber of plot lines to intersect and make sense: The murdered French tourists? Capturing the French murderer? How the suspect knew so much of Ray's childhood past? Absolutely no spark between Ray and Trudi - she just seemed to be there, but her particular mission had nothing to do with Ray/s - except that he suggested she use similar tactics to what he used...(!) But what was the connection to the main theme? How come, after the suspect had blatantly said he wouldn't be interviewed by a woman, were TWO women sent in to interview him?

Ray's non-relationship with his father and mother, siblings? Dougie's disgusting behaviour as a cop - whoring, drinking to excess, blatant racism - he should have been kicked off the force in disgrace. Amanda's explosive incident with her (supposedly) ex... OK - all these flimsy sub plot lines did nothing for the main story. And should have come together to tie everything up with a neat little bow leaving us (the viewers) saying Ah Ha!...or leave some very important questions hanging - but in a way that made some sense. And then the ending...bang, they blew their case in court!

Seriously people? Started off well enough - good plot, strange things landing on earth, pumping out signals, intrepid (woman) spaceship commander leaves her family "back on the farm" in pursuit of knowledge, contact with other civilizations and a bit of glory thrown in for good measure. Meanwhile her husband is a scientific geek trying to communicate with the aliens and communicate with them to find out actually want from us.

Then it started becoming bogged down with existential, touchy feely stuff, deep emotions brought about by confinement in a tin can for months; a later-day "Data" - but this time made up entirely of light sensors and Artificial intelligence starts having "feelings" for our brave commander. She is meanwhile trying to keep her young, idealistic, cancel culture "millennial"--type crew in check. They all seem to do exactly what the hell they like (including a bit of romping) with little concern for discipline. It's a wonder how their spacecraft even got off the ground with mutiny brewing almost from last off. I ensured it right through to the final episodes of Season 1, and then - WOW! They end up on an earth-like planet with some "Plan 9 from Outer Space" type creatures, probably refugees from Ed Wood's defunct studio - no, c'mon!!! Couldn't your special effects and costume dept. Have done better? OK - that's it. No Season 2 for me. There are far better things to waste and evening or two on.

First of all, this is NOT a biography: It's a fictionalized look at the life of MM. Secondly, one must understand the era in which this took place - the 50s and 60s, when "starlets" were objectified, considered only as good as they would give on the casting couch, and the movie industry literally chewed up and spat out any who were not compliant. Many of the scenes in which Marilyn enters a crowd shows only men - ugly men, drooling men, men with only one thing on their minds - Marilyn's luscious body. Ana de Armas was outstanding: she looked identical to MM, and even her husky little girl voice was on line. Viewing this through 21st Century politically correct, eyes, one can quickly condemn it for the exploitative theme - but that's what it was back then. Even her relationships with Joe di Maggio and Arthur Miller were to an extent condescending: Joe was an abuser, who just wanted to own her; Arthur Miller was condescending - he loved her, but he didn't take her intellect seriously. I believe this is all Marilyn really wanted: to be taken seriously as a competent, even a good actor, who had read and understood classics, (Chekov, Dostoyevsky etc. ) I think the movie tried honestly to delve into Marilyn's tormented mind, with a big dose of "what if..." The most important element in a fictional movie, I believe, is plausibility. Could it have happened? I think, in this case, yes.

In other words, vacuous. Being a big fan of Pitt, Tommy Lees Jones, Donald Sutherland, I had expected much, much more. Disappointment reigns supreme. But that wasn't the worst of it. I cannot understand how a lone astronaut, running against the clock, could make it into an close-to-launch rocket ship (what, the airlocks were easy to open???); with just seconds to spare; get onto the flight deck while the ship was launching, manage a huge face-off with the crew, and then pilot the ship solo to Neptune where he finds his father - missing for 30 years. The encounter is like: "Oh hi son: how are you?" - "Hello Dad - come home with me." Duh! And then it goes rapidly downhill - if it could go an further.

No: the set-ups were totally improbable, not realistic, not plausible in any way. I sat through it, mainly to see how much worse it could get. I wasn't disappointed from that point of view. This tries to be a deep, personal, soul-searching, relationship questioning, psycho-drama set in space., where it should have been blasted, and left there...with other debris, neveer to be recovered.

On the whole, an excellently produced and acted Israeli series. I love the intro design - very clever: ...BUT...there are some unforgivable gaffs. Just a few to get you started: I found Roy Miller as the British officer, James Brown, very unconvincing. He is German and although he tries hard, his German accent often slips through: e. G. he says "off" for "of" and his intonation is very much Germanic rather than public school British. I would have thought that the producers could have found a genuine mother-tongue English actor in Israel with a genuine British officer accent - there are DOZENS of them. Secondly, the British soldiers depicted look like remnants from a defeated rabble army: sloppy, unkempt, poor uniform replication, certainly not troops from His Majesty's army. Thirdly, the Ford truck used by the terror gang in 1938 is very definitely a 1952 model Ford , not a 1938 (or earlier) model. And finally, that stupid anachronistic hat they've given Gabriel to wear! He would have looked much better in a period-appropriate Fedora. However, suspension of disbelief rules and my wife and I are enjoying it.

It was ticking along nicely until around episode 5 when they started introducing weird astral projection stuff and by the nd of the series I'd lost it. No, no,. no...totally unlikely, implausible, not in the real world. OK, some people may believe in this stuff, and good luck to them. But to make it the denouement of this (up until then) reasonably intriguing story, just doesn't cut it. I would far rather have had Adele hint at this stuff (to enhance her weirdness), but to actually have been tracking her husband and Louise with a security camera, or via Louise's cellphone, or laptop, or even a drone outside her window - all this would have seemed more likely. Did NOT like the way this resolved. Oh dear, oh dear, because it kept us hooked for 4 out of 6 episodes. Good acting by the way, beautiful cast, nice production; what a pity.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear... FIrst of all, Kate is gorgeous. right. That's the good part. A great premise, an intriguing and promising plot, but what a shambles of a series. The first thing that alerted me to possible disappointment was the fact that in "Kinshasa" they are suddenly driving on the left hand side of the road - NOT! There is an aerial shot (probably stock video) of Kinshasa in which all the vehicles are driving on the right, and then suddenly, all the cars are RHD. Bad start. Yes, I know it was filmed in South Africa, but so what? They can access LHD cars in SA if needed. Secondly, why on earth would a woman (even if she is an ex-RA captain) go wandering off into the jungle, all alone, unarmed, without even a smattering of French, no translator, into a cesspit of militia and bad guys? Not credible. Thirdly, how come a girl child-soldier from a rural village, speaks such perfect English, when she admitted at first that her English was very basic. Fourthly, why did Will go rogue? The loss of his daughter was tragic (hardly much to do with the story), but what was the connection to Judith (apart from being an employee); and...oh c'mon: what was Martin's connection to Georgia? And what was the incident with Emmanuel's wife's ex-husband all about? No. no no. And then the "cutesy" bits: Adidja comes back into Georgia's life as I suppose a surrogate daughter, and then the sheepdog bit at the end - really? Kinda highly predictable. This was just too confusing, too many flashbacks, too many disjointed scenes, just realy, really poor, sloppy work. Two good bits of casting though - I loved Peter Bello - a real bad-ass Afrikaner and his ex-wife. THEY at least were authentically crappy. The rest...uh uh. Don't waste your time.

Aw shucks, guys: Keifer is the best - he's a great actor, he really does have presidential bearing; he carries the part extremely well. What a pity it's such a weak part and he is made out to be a wimp from wimp-land. OK, fairness demands: it's a great premise - OMG almost the entire US government is wiped out in one fell- swoop...what to do, what to do? Here's this poor schnook of a housing secretary (described in the script as a glorified real estate agent - probably the only good line in the entire script) who now has to en-robe himself in the presidential mantel and run the country, bringing confidence and security back to the American people. Except that the American people don't really seem to care that much. They are still going out to dinners, the president's daughter is allowed out to a sleepover (seriously!) the rebellious teenage son is allowed to go to a dance club; and worst of all, the Governors are ganging up against the president because they say he's not qualified. Jeez, give the guy a break! He was thrust into this, he didn't choose it. And then there are the other plot points which are slung at the viewer without allowing time to breath! The problem is that it just doesn't ring true. If this had really happened, I would imagine that Washington at least, and probably the entire US, would be in lock-down for a year! There would be no US athletic team going off to Russia (hello!?); there would be no nice-nice with foreign ambassadors and certainly no "governor's ball" or whatever party that was at the White House. Uh uh - I'm continuing to watch it because to me it's just mindless nonsense that I really don't have to think too much about. They should have given the task of making this to the Brits - now THAT would have been a series and a half! Tight, tense, realistic, gritty, real people thrust into an impossible situation. And the series would have been dealt with in 6 tightly- wound episodes. Sorry Keifer, not a 24...not even a 4 (you got a 3).