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Carambotti
Reviews
The Diplomat (2023)
Effervescent nonsense
This is a comedy series dressed up as international political intrigue, entirely unshackled from the consequences of the real world. The political machinations of heads of state somehow has a sexy side to it? Russia/Iran bad. US/UK good. Very tired tropes. An entire series about the dangers of the middle east, and not a single mention of Israel? Great set pieces, locations, production values. London and the British countryside look dazzling in this telling. Everywhere else is erased. One lense you could watch this series through is how frequently everyone is holding a glass of straight, hard alcohol.
Valkyrien (2017)
Inconsequential, unimaginative, science-y thriller series.
The setup and location is all very promising. But by 5th episode, I couldn't take the bumbling oopsies that pass for slight comedic relief. Teo gets yelled at for being careless as he cleans, while Ravn literally smears himself all over the tent that Vilma is kept in, while he is bleeding out of his eyes. Having been thru a real, global pandemic, it's silly to see how careless and thoughtless this show spent on the pandemic sub-plot. I get the purpose of plot device is to play on our fears, but this is just unimaginative. Incompetant police detective, bumbling, hapless muscle thug, husband that will sacrifice others to save his doomed wife, and a mastermind that surveils all but never quite connects. And yet again, clunky cell phone texting gets used as a stand in for clever writing. Bummers.
Wolf Pack (2023)
Really bad
Strangely bad, content-free. I hoped Sarah Michelle Geller would bring at least some self-awareness to this YA plot. Production values are standard tv procedural, cgi wolf eyes are lame, and the suspense-o-matic sound effects are cringy. The plot is convoluted, with timelines jumping around, bad guys lurking, and parents weirdly unaware and ineffective. This all feels like the thinnest pretext to showcase male torsos as eye candy. Why is this even made? The kids don't get to emotionally grasp anything, as they are bewildered with their metamorphosis. And the biggest miss is that there isn't a whiff of comic relief in sight. This is all a very serious show.
Moonfall (2022)
An absolute travesty. It fails even as a B movie.
Who is this schlock made for? $150M budget? Come on. That is the real SCIF question.
I have no problem believing that life on planet earth maybe was seeded by an "alien" race billions of years ago. It's plausible. There's a whole History Channel show on it. (lol)
But it is sloppy, sloppy to suggest that AI will rise up and swarm the Universe just to snuff us out, like some revengeful, petty intelligence! Supra intelligence does not need to extinguish biological forms that have such miniscule lifespans. It's lazy fantasy to reformulate our creation story, once again, to make Planet Earth the central concern of ALL of the intelligences of the Universe.
Can we come up with a more interesting plot twist?
You know what pisses me off about this kind of story-telling? That a person's only effing concern while the earth's mantle gets ripped off is to save their own children first. It's gross. 7 billion people have just presumably died, but it's all ok if your kiddo makes it. What value system is this propping up?
Uninspired visuals, boring carnage sequences, and yet again, an over reliance on cell phone functionality to drive the plot.
Grond (2021)
Clever premise gives good vibes, mostly
This original concept is an instant hook to check this show out. There's lots of situational humor here, exploring how this Moroccan family runs their family funereal business within a muslim community in Belgium. Tension between conservative muslim and more westernized traditions sets this up for lots of laughs. It can get a bit heavy-handed in segments, depicting a woman's role and position in both traditions, burial rites, or community expectations. But it turns out that crazy family dynamics, and intimate relationship challenges, are universal truths where ever you come from. There's an endearing code to family-first in this story, that includes more than just blood relations. Would recommend for an easy entertaining diversion.
Heartbreak High (2022)
A show that literally "maps" the sex lives of teenagers. Got it!
Astonishing how casually flippant these writers treat heavy subject matter in this show. The primary tension running through the first 7 episodes is the flimsiest framework to hang this teen drama upon. Amerie can't figure out why her bff Harper suddenly turns against her without any explanation. For 7 episodes the viewer is wondering what Amerie could possibly have done that would warrant this behavior. But, teens gotta do what they wants to do. So they proceed to hookup, in various permutations, filling out that "map".
I'll give this show a couple stars for diversity inclusion, portraying autism, lesbian, bi, and gay characters in light character development. But none are really fully realized.
*****Spoiler section****
Turns out, in the 8th episode, we learn, through flash backs, what the "plot-driving" wedge was for Harper: violent assault, attempted rape, abduction, mental breakdown and violence in the home! And yet... the reason Harper treats Amerie like stone is for not responding to a window tap when your friend needs you. Is this for real? Scrolling back through all the ridiculous situations Harper finds herself in as the new school year begins, in light of this revelation, doesn't soften any of the antics she got up to.
Violent crime as the unknown tension to get you to stick around for 8 episodes is crass writing. Why not lead with the horrifying truth, and make this whole series be an indictment of misogyny, rape culture and lack of accountability? Ask the viewers to come along as the characters learn and grow through their journey?
Instead, we are left with "I'm sooo sorry, I just didn't know."
Instead, the writers give us bubble-gum pop. Case in point: sound-tracking Strawberry Kisses, by Nikki Webster, over the in-classroom arrest of Ca$h as accomplice to the crimes, while he breathlessly proclaims his love to Darren. What could have been an endearing moment of truth, over-written. Or ending the same episode 8 neatly, with all the mains gleefully jumping into a pool by the ocean holding hands, as if the world was all ok.
It can't be taken seriously.
Vikings: Valhalla (2022)
Tough act to follow the original
This show has big shoes to wear after the wild success of the 2013 Vikings series. It very much is the junior brother to that series, as it turns out.
The entire first season here is built on revenge. Revenge for the brutalizing of a clan of Greenlanders, the slaughter of the Vikings settlers of England by the crown, or clan against clan.
But where it gets interesting for me is to watch the tension of faith against faith, within the Viking peoples themselves. Vikings who follow the "old ways" of Odin, and the promise of Valhalla, versus the Vikings who have converted to the foreign faith of the English and Franks. This is what this story really wants to tell. But it doesn't answer why very concisely. Why would Vikings convert to some foreign lands' belief system, and then return to slaughter their own peoples to enforce conversion? Is it the trappings of wealth & power that enamores them, somehow? The belief systems are completely different, silly in their own ways. But why does the new one win out?
The pacing is a bit choppy as it jumps from region to region and back. Felt like they were punching check boxes to get through a list. Relationship development seems rushed, even with the requisite sex scenes sprinkled in. This series tones down the bloody gore factor from the original, but that decision turns some battle scenes comical, with everyone dying instantly from a single slash of a sword or arrow.
I'm ready to see S2 if it gets picked up.
Medici (2016)
YA Renaissance cosplay?
Missed opportunity to delve so much deeper into what life was like for the Medici family in the context of Renaissance Florence. Pick any angle: the court intrigues, the perpetual slaughter of war, skewering Catholic hypocrisy, the brilliance of pulling the western world out of the dark ages, the art, the Duomo. All of this becomes merely set pieces.
Instead, the chapters just zoom from breathless scene to scene. The "bad" guys aren't really scary, the "good" guys swing back and forth aimlessly. In the first season, Dustin Hoffman as the grand patriarch is laughable and stiff. His magnum opus is to use his heir-apparent son, Cosimo, against his main rival to gain a tidbit of intelligence that any number of his goons could have sourced if they just bothered to listen in on the gossip at the wharves. He betrays his son's innocence for this? To teach him a lesson in the ways of conniving bankers? Somehow, Cosimo retains his moral guideposts, which gets used repeatedly as a plot driver to silly effect.
Morality here is the fantasy part of this drama. Its odd. Family patriarchs that are offended when accused of killing people, while holding the very knives used. The Signoria is a kangaroo court, with the nobles swaying at the slightest bits of contrived evidence. Hearsay is apparently all you need to condemn a life in this telling, yet the characters don't seem to be self-aware of this in the slightest. And the peasants are just a caricature of a mob. Pious anguish is supposed to convey a dilema for these good guys. But we all know its a charade.
I tried to hang in there thru the first season, but after the second episode I was already on notice.
4 stars for the fairly sumptuous set pieces. But the writing and character development are sophomoric.
Nisser (2021)
Shockingly bad.
Clueless holidaying family on ancient, remote island wreaks havoc on everything they touch. People die as a result of the actions of this family! The true horror is that any one of them make it out alive. This is parent-porn. Breathless hugging after every ridiculous plot twist that they bring upon themselves. I marvel this series was made.
La casa de papel (2017)
World-wide phenom? Nope!
People are saying the first two seasons are great, THEN it goes downhill? I barely made it through the third episode in S1. Tropes are trotted out so fast in this series that it's hard to keep track of. Female detective lead is the only one with personal baggage? Helpless ambassador's daughter goes into a bathroom stall with dumbo jock expecting...what? Junior heister takes hostage into the master control room to have her record a denial video on her personal cell phone, then leaves her unattended while he fights with his non-girlfriend heister accomplice? Rejected pregnant mistress plans to get an abortion, yet wavers instantly when the weasel father confesses what a shyster man he is. Said weasel then gets said mistress to go grab a stashed cell phone, immediately putting her in danger? Is this for real? The real horror is that this goes on for 5 seasons! Nope.
La Brea (2021)
Just say nope!
28 minutes in to the pilot and I can't go any further. This is F movie material, with not even a whiff of potential.
It's a conceit of the writers to make the primary tension in the show be driven by main characters of a broken family, separated by tragedy. Lots of potential, but it immediately devolves into what I call "parental porn". A sinkhole has just opened up in the heart of LA, with perhaps 10's of thousands of people losing their lives. Yet these two parents hardly register any concern for the greater tragedy, with their only focus seemingly to protect only their two children.
Is there a more tired trope than a father-savior telling their frantic child, via cell phone, to "stay right there (at the sink hole)! I'm on my way!"? (We accept when Dennis Quaid tells young Jake Gyllenhaal, in Day After Tomorrow, to "stay put at the Central Library, because daddy is walking from Philly to NYC in a northern-hemisphere-obliterating hurricane-blizzard to come get ya". We accept that instance only because of its sheer campy ridiculousness, star power and ample CGI budget.) This show has none of that.
Another example: The mother says "I'm supposed to be out looking for an ambulance for my son, but I can't leave you alone", directing this to a man about to take his own life, implying that he is distracting a mother from her ordained prerogative. None the less, moments later this suicidal man agrees to join her quest, all in service just to save her son, as if that is the MOST important thing to do in this strange new world.
It's a flimsy, lazy device to hang a show on. Doesn't bode well.
Designated Survivor: #scaredsh*tless (2019)
S3 The best of the series.
Not a single car chase, human stories, no explosions. Trying to figure it out. It's done, been cancelled. So why are people coming for this show? So weird? In 2021 why are people coming for this show? Homophobic, transphobic, bigotry.
Designated Survivor (2016)
Endlessly silly
This extended Ford advertisement may hook you with it's initial premise: whenever the entire US government meets in one place, like say the State of the Union, there is always a Designated Survivor chosen from the chain of command to remain separate. Just in case. Well, what if the just in case happened? Drama ensues.
But that's it. Once the tension of finding the mastermind of the initial plot line is complete, the show devolves into endless silliness. Bad guy billionaires, Russians, Cubans, weapons dealers, Arabs, Afghanis, senators, hackers, dumb police, generals and human frailty. They are all there. And Kiefer Sutherland dispatches them all with his own brand of justice. It's exhausting and cliche.
There are two types of scenes in this procedural:
People walking through the maze of hallways in the White House, going to their next very important meeting. There is one shot where it appears the actors literally walk in a complete square around a conference room, just to give the scene enough time to complete their dialogue. This device is comical in its many permutations.
Or, Ford vehicles speeding thru city/suburban streets trying to beat some existential clock to get to the next thing, like explosions, or empty warehouses/safe houses/tunnels/bridges. It's all a Ford advertisement. There is literally a scene where an agent is shown to pull out her cell-phone to remotely start her Ford sedan from maybe 15 paces away. Serving no purpose other than to highlight the tech of the vehicle in 2016 where that tech is only just gaining traction in the real world.
Watch for the blue folders. They are everywhere. And you know it's serious when Kiefer puts on his glasses. Shout out to Lyor for skewering all the ridiculousness.
Designated Survivor (2016)
Endlessly silly
This extended Ford advertisement may hook you with it's initial premise: whenever the entire US government meets in one place, like say the State of the Union, there is always a Designated Survivor chosen from the chain of command to remain separate. Just in case. Well, what if the just in case happened? Drama ensues.
But that's it. Once the tension of finding the mastermind of the initial plot line is complete, the show devolves into endless silliness. Bad guy billionaires, Russians, Cubans, weapons dealers, Arabs, Afghanis, senators, hackers, dumb police, generals and human frailty. They are all there. And Kiefer Sutherland dispatches them all with his own brand of justice. It's exhausting and cliche.
There are two types of scenes in this procedural:
People walking through the maze of hallways in the White House, going to their next very important meeting. There is one shot where it appears the actors literally walk in a complete square around a conference room, just to give the scene enough time to complete their dialogue. This device is comical in its many permutations.
Or, Ford vehicles speeding thru city/suburban streets trying to beat some existential clock to get to the next thing, like explosions, or empty warehouses/safe houses/tunnels/bridges. It's all a Ford advertisement. There is literally a scene where an agent is shown to pull out her cell-phone to remotely start her Ford sedan from maybe 15 paces away. Serving no purpose other than to highlight the tech of the vehicle in 2016 where that tech is only just gaining traction in the real world.
Watch for the blue folders. They are everywhere. And you know it's serious when Kiefer puts on his glasses. Shout out to Lyor for skewering all the ridiculousness.
Outer Banks (2020)
Absolute garbage
It's a riot to read the other low mark reviews! All spot on. I'll give three of my favorite WTH moments:
The "smart" kid of the bunch preaches code of silence to the other pogues regarding the treasure. And yet, at his scholarship interview, promptly tells the interviewers ALL the details of the discovered treasure. Before they had even gotten hold of it. Really?
The sheriff goes to make an arrest, apparently without telling anyone at the precinct what she was doing. And with no backup. Nor apparently any documentation left on her desk. Doesn't turn out too well. What was the plan here? She would show up at the precinct and just surprise everyone with the suspect in shackles? Yet she was the clever sleuth that put the whole sordid case together? Waste of a character and great actor.
Final straw for me: S2E1 John B promises to not go do something stupid. And then as soon as everyone is asleep, he goes skipping over to the Cameron mansion, breaks in, searches around for maybe 60 seconds and finds a safe with drag marks in front of it. A-ha! That's where the gold is. So he walks up and vigorously tries to crank the safe handles. They don't budge. What does he do? He howls out loud with infantile frustration. Does he not know how safes work? End of scene. He then does something off camera until daybreak, and yet is astonished when he gets back to the hotel to find that she has left. (There are so many ridiculous moments in this sequence. I just can't)
I mean, this is all such bad plot writing. It has to be a joke! Who signed off on this?
Outer Banks (2020)
Absolute garbage
It's a riot to read the other low mark reviews! All spot on. I'll give three of my favorite WTH moments:
The "smart" kid of the bunch preaches code of silence to the other pogues regarding the treasure. And yet, at his scholarship interview, promptly tells the interviewers ALL the details of the discovered treasure. Before they had even gotten hold of it. Really?
The sheriff goes to make an arrest, apparently without telling anyone at the precinct what she was doing. And with no backup. Nor apparently any documentation left on her desk. Doesn't turn out too well. What was the plan here? She would show up at the precinct and just surprise everyone with the suspect in shackles? Yet she was the clever sleuth that put the whole sordid case together? Waste of a character and great actor.
Final straw for me: S2E1 John B promises to not go do something stupid. And then as soon as everyone is asleep, he goes skipping over to the Cameron mansion, breaks in, searches around for maybe 60 seconds and finds a safe with drag marks in front of it. A-ha! That's where the gold is. So he walks up and vigorously tries to crank the safe handles. They don't budge. What does he do? He howls out loud with infantile frustration. Does he not know how safes work? End of scene. He then does something off camera until daybreak, and yet is astonished when he gets back to the hotel to find that she has left. (There are so many ridiculous moments in this sequence. I just can't)
I mean, this is all such bad plot writing. It has to be a joke! Who signed off on this?