TL;DR - Was episode one good? Sort of? It depends on how you consume and appreciate the medium.
The Good:
The Bad:
The Ugly:
Conclusion:
I hope the series improves because premise alone is enough to carry it. It feels distinct enough to be successful, but I think the FX usage is a travesty.
This show could be elevated with better cinematography and FX choices moving forward. I guess we will have to wait and see.
The Good:
- intriguing premise
- fresh(ish) take, nice settings
- most writing is passable, connections to comic pretty cool but ultimately detract in a few ways. Dialogue shines, cool mythos
- oscar issac is a great actor (ep was acted well overall by cast except for a few qualms which I will get into)
- Khonshu gave me Stanley Parable vibes which is a point in my book despite other issues with the character immediately nullifying said point
- main "revelation" of EP is as slow of a burn as possible without being trite/boring, glad they resolved the "trailer mystery" in first EP, suggests more substantial follow-up
The Bad:
- the CGI/special effects are not great. They're often laughably bad. This is a Disney+ Marvel series. You have the budget for this. Referencing Avatar was that expensive? If the money was not there, less is more. Practical effects, offscreen action (see the final scene of the episode--i know they know how to employ this technique), and atmospheric tension take a backburner to poor renders, jump scares and other default horror tropes. FX go from tense to silly to completely immersion-breaking at times. Just gonna headcanon that we're still in the pilot episode era and the effects will improve over time.
- moon knight's mummy-adjacent costume is flawed in myriad ways, it was silly from day 1 and should've been workshopped into something that didn't look like it was a PS4 render of whatever Assassin's Creed protagonist is also a half-mummified corpse (ngl i'd play that game)
- the description on D+ specifically states Steven/Marc has Dissociative Identity Disorder, and if so, this is a very tasteless portrayal...then again we got Split as well so in comparison it's not as bad.
The Ugly:
- some story beats and events simply don't make sense, and it is hard to judge as poor writing so early in the series. An example: the logistics of who gets to be in "control" don't seem well defined, marc has to ask for permission at the end but the threat of death was greater than previous times marc "assumed control". If Marc can step in to intervene, and Steven is powerless to this, why does Khonshu act like Steven can "take control" at random and inconvenient times with no knowledge or interest in doing so? Perhaps this will be answered in time.
- a few goofy extras/lesser characters. Like, standing in Steven's path to the exit from an altercation is enough to reveal you are working with the bad guy. Did you have to roll up your sleeve to show your death eater tattoo as confirmation? Total badass over here
- Khonshu's voice doesn't work for me, but this is a personal issue with having ancient deities use English instead of something more cerebral (same issue w/ celestials in Eternals). I'd rather have slowed-down electric can opener noises with subtitles or truncated/weird creoles than perfect English. It's a small individual gripe and I don't count it against the show for this reason.
Conclusion:
I hope the series improves because premise alone is enough to carry it. It feels distinct enough to be successful, but I think the FX usage is a travesty.
This show could be elevated with better cinematography and FX choices moving forward. I guess we will have to wait and see.