tomkin-daniel-b Reviews

Foundation (2021– )

Not quite landing the spaceship.

[7/10 · 9 May 2023]

The number one selling point is the amazing visuals. The show looks glorious.

I am a big fan of Dune and Raised by Wolves and was hoping that this matched my enjoyment, but it failed to quite reach that level, I wasn't quite as engaged.

I was a big fan of the work done by Lee Pace in this. The concept and ideas behind 'Empire' were interesting and thought provoking, and absolutely enhanced by Pace's performance. Also kudos to Jared Harris as Hari Seldon, he is always good. Nice to see Dan McPherson as always in the rougish Han Soloesque role and I like the woman playing the robot. Hope to see more of her character in future seasons.

I found the other characters reasonably uninteresting. Especially the Gaal character. She came off as a bit of a young adult type character. Frustrated me a bit I guess.

Jupiter's Legacy (2021)

A tad slow but still good

[8/10 · 11 May 2021]

1. Not as good as The Boys or Invincible.

2. Undoubtedly a little slow, requires patience.

3. The 'older' actors are excellent - Ben Daniels, Matt Lantner, Leslie Bibb. Josh Duhamel is ok. The actress that plays Chloe looks the part.

4. Really enjoyed the parts set in the 30's.

5. Liked how they didn't shy away from superhero costumes.

6. Better than the CW shows.

I will watch season 2 if it is rewnewed.

Outside the Wire (2021)

Bit of a waste really

[5/10 · 23 January 2021]

Flat characters, very serious, predictable, no fun, no style, moderately interesting world building, passable action scenes.

The Vast of Night (2019)

Show don't tell

[7/10 · 9 June 2020]

I guess due to budget constraints there are a lot of long speeches that could have been shown was monologued. Having said that the actors tasked with the monologues do a great job.

The feel, atmosphere of late '50s America is well realised.

I liked the chemistry between the two lead actors.

Yellowstone (2018– )

Succession but a Western

[9/10 · 24 May 2020]

I'll make the similarities with Succession. Yellowstone has more action, especially around the cattle rustling scenes. There is also more violence, physical and guns. You'll see characters with bruised faces....and worse. Actually I probably should be comparing with Peaky Blinders. Both shows push the boundaries of 'gritiness' and aren't afraid to put their characters into dire physical and mental situations. Now back to Succession. Succession is cleverer and focuses solely on the 'rich' family. Yellowstone does spend time with the cowboys and actually the show is better when it does as these are some excellent characters. Yellowstone is also more 'soap opery' than Succession. Up to you whether that is good or not.

Also need to mention Kelly Reilly's character, Beth Dutton, she is one of the best female characters on television at the moment.

I know that the scenery isn't really Montana but it is really spectacular and gives the show a cinematic feel.

I was expecting this to be a bit like Longmire but other than both being modern Westerns there isn't really much similarity.

Titans (I) (2018–2023)

A star better then the CW shows.........

[7/10 · 26 March 2020]

................but a star worse than its stable mate, Doom Patrol.

One thing that this show has nailed is that a lot of the actors totally look like how I want the characters to look. The dude who plays Dick Grayson could not be any more perfectly looking for the job. Hawk, Dove, Donna Troy, Jason Todd and Superboy are also pretty good likenesses.

• Great to see Iain Glenn, as always, playing a fairly important DC character.
• I'd prefer an older, taller, more mysterious Raven.
• I'd like to see Beast Boy do more than just turn into a tiger. Perhaps that is for later seasons.

Hellboy (2019)

The OG is much better

[6/10 · 20 March 2020]

Leans more into the horror compared to the pre reboot movies. As I am more of a super hero fan rather than blood flying everywhere fan this wasn't welcome. This movie needed

• a little more were-jaguar. I don't recall seeing this type of character before
• a lot more Lobster Johnson, he was interesting
• a heck of a lot more Abe Sapien, that bit at the end doesn't really count.

The special effects were inconsistent.

Altered Carbon (2018–2020)

Brilliant.........at first

[7/10 · 8 March 2020]

I loved season one. It was one of my favourite shows of 2018. I had read the book and it was one of the rare instances where the adaptation was better than the print version - 10/10. After watching season one I read the second book and, while not as good as the first one, I still enjoyed it. I read that Anthony Mackie was to play the new Takeshi Kovacs and thought - that could work! Kovacs is in an African American sleeve in the second book, he could pull it off nicely. Of course I didn't realise that they weren't actually going to adapt the second book........

I loved how raw, dingy, dirty, grimy, edgy the initial world that Kovacs inhabits during the first season. It also treated the viewers with intelligence, you had to pay attention, figure out what was going on. There was a challenge in watching it. All of that was bled out in the second season. The plot was, disappointingly cookie cutter simple. And, possibly worse, it was like they had spread hospital grade disinfectant all over it, it was so clean and sanitised.

The characters/actors

• To be fair to Anthony Mackie, I didn't mind him too much. I think the fault with the character was that he had less to do. The story is not purely a Kovacs story anymore. He was probably my third favourite character.
• The best character, and I'd be surprised if many people disagreed, was easily Poe. Every scene with him in it was interesting and his story arc was engaging. I sometimes contemplated fast forwarding bits to find out what he was doing next.
• Quellcrist Falconer has a really cool name but I found her to be not especially interesting despite being a critical part of the plot. I'm not sure why I reacted against her. Perhaps it was partly due to expecting a Takeshi Kovacs story and I resented it turning out to be as much about Quellcrist as him.
• Trepp/Simone Missick - I am more sure of why I never engaged with this character. I had just finished watching Hunters, as well as recently watched Black Lightning and I felt that I had watched variations of that character again. To clarify - they are are all about 'third string' characters, black, lesbian, bad ass, slightly aggressive, slightly single minded and their girlfriends/wives are asian/latino. Also I couldn't help being reminded of Missick's role as Misty Knight in Marvel's Netflix shows which also gradually deteriorated in enjoyment, especially season 2 of Netflix.
• The villains were cartoony, not a patch on James Purefoy in season 1
• Oh, I haven't mentioned my second favourite character. That would be Dig. Maybe it is because she was in a lot of Poe's scenes that I liked her, but I did think she was pretty cool.

5/10 for season 2