Reviews

I'm trying to enjoy this show. I realize that it's inspired by a game I've never played, but I hate every character in this. Perhaps because the characters are from a game, each one has to be so over the top? Maximus is the one I hate the most. He came from being a squire, yet he treats his new squire just as bad as he was treated. Plus, I think he is a past acquaintance? His portrayal as a bumbling hero-to-be is just not appealing to me. The heroine is so clueless that I'm not rooting for her. Since the story revolves around her mission, I guess we're stuck with her. I love Walton Goggins work, but I've missed his motivation and reasons for being so cruel. He just feels like a cartoon evil bad guy that is just mean to have a villain for the plot.

But far and away, it's the music that is the most detracting to me. Seems like they dug up every goofy, sarcastic, comedy-type song and played them in this episode. I found a couple just unnecessary and distracting. The audio mix had me turning on the closed captions... which I hate. I'll try one more episode, but my expectations are low.

I managed to frustrate my way through season one hoping for something better out of season two. But I couldn't get through half of the first episode. 1) The people being so stupid not to unplug and pack up the radio equipment before the rain starts. 2) Why didn't they construct the antenna on the roof? 3) The wife falls in the pit and just like her idiot daughter questions absolutely everything the guy who has been there the longest has to say. Are these two women just mental? The guy explained to her three times to STFU, but she keeps asking things out loud? 4) Bus load of people and of course there are three characters I instantly hate - the tough kid, the crazy old lady, and the boy who, mysteriously can't hardly talk. I really hate characters who can't just talk.

Between these three, I can see the writing (lousy as it is) on the wall. Frustrations galore for me. I had to stop watching. I'm sick and tired of being confused and watching idiots (like the software developer and the Colony House mother) acting so over-the-top dramatic.

So I live in Orlando. I have since the mid-80's. I love shows that are set in my state like Miami Vice, Burn Notice, Bloodline, and Nip/Tuck. I also love dark and quirky humor. So this show was going to be an instant hit for me... until it wasn't.

The main character has such a thick accent that I had to turn on the Closed Captions. I hate Closed Captions because I stress for having to read as fast as I can and I miss so much of the actor's facial expressions and body language. Seems his father and brother don't have this accent? That was not explained.

The woman just has no redeeming qualities other than a well preserved body and pleasant face. I have no connection or sympathy for her as she seems to be always in the situation for herself and the writing makes nothing funny of this. In fact, every character is in it for themselves including our protagonist. So why do I care? A bunch of greedy people who would leave you on the side of the road for fifty bucks. That gets tiring and I gave up half way through episode 3.

Every other scene is drinking water, talking about water, they're thirsty... etc. The subject of water is overplayed.

The sand rail gets stuck, in the middle of a dirt road, flat with no holes or rocks. I mean, it's a vehicle made for rough terrain.

Danzinger acts like he is the logical, reasonable, and resourceful one, but he keeps making stupid decisions. He fell down a hill because he was reckless and nearly dies.

The lake turns out to be acid, but the leader woman finds water in this arid landscape buy digging about 4 inches down in the sand... incredible.

Aside from nearly every character overdramatizing in every scene, the overall plot doesn't advance very much. I understand this is an old TV show, the concept is great, but I also understand why it didn't last very long.

The father is a good guy, then he is a bad guy. The Tom team is dead, then they are alive, but then they are dead. The DNA evidence is good, then it's somehow false. Crowley is the boogeyman, but it's his father, then it's not. This episode jumps in time so often, it's hard to make sense out of. I get the intrigue. Our protagonist is sorting through a complicated story while not knowing who to trust and grieving over his lost team of friends. Shuffling the time line is just a ploy to toy with us, the audience. I will give this one more episode and if the timeline doesn't just move forward, I'm done.

This episode was a cheap knock off a James Bond movie. You have a suave villain who looks like Louis Jordan (Kamal Kahn) from Octopussy. You have nuclear weapons and military hardware being stolen and sold on the black market. Heck, you even have an actual Bond girl in Brit Ekland. Instead of cool gadgets, you have Steve's cyborg abilities to stop the bad guys.

What's missing is the music, stunts, special effects... basically budget. I guess these are the limitations with a TV show. But as far as a SMDM episode goes, you could do worse. The second part is at least 30% rehash so the first episode. They stretched it too much to make two full episodes out of it.

I simply don't understand why? Crossing what they have determined is a dangerous river in the dark. First of all, why not find a better place to cross? C'mon, all rivers change as they go along. But for the love of god, why take your most precious thing in the world, your family... and infinitely increase the danger by crossing at night? If they go in the water, you can't see them. Don't they have rope? How about tie some around your kids as you cross? That thing was was just idiotic.

Also, I get the idea of unloading unnecessary items from the wagons, but to deny them going back for their items? Maybe cannibalize one of the wagons into a raft/boat and string a rope across the river? They could put people and items in it. Sam is just a harsh jerk and I'm tired of him being a bully. I found myself yelling at the TV.

This is not Baretta's finest hour (also pun intended). Beretta keeps pontificating to the two dumb kids about life and bad choices. The mother is annoyingly ignorant about what her coddled sons are doing. She seems to act like she has an IQ problem, yet runs a business. She's also in financial trouble but admits she is irresponsible with money. Everyone is overacting in this episode and/or doing a very poor job of acting.

But to most glaring mistake or goof is that Donnie, the idiot mastermind of their criminal ways, was supposedly stricken with polio at a young age. Indeed, he walks with a limp... right until the end chase scene through a junk yard, when he mysteriously can now run and jump across junk cars. It's a unforgivable mistake with continuity and screenplay on the writers, producers and director's part.

I've been watching the seasons in a row. This is the first episode I recall ever having Robert Blake being a narrator. He's talking to his dad who died in a mob hit years earlier. Unlike another review, upon the beginning he is summoned to the hospital bed of a dying mobster and hit man who confesses how his father died, and who put the contract out on him. This is now Baretta's motivation, and the topic for the rest of the show. This is a nice change to this season seeing an episode where Baretta is more of an investigator and less of a social worker. Lots of bad guys to interact with. I wish I could get my hands on Season 4.

The motel scene was not needed... at least not in such graphic detail. The producers could have shown the two of them going into the room and let the viewer fill in the blanks. Letting your audience use their imagination is a good thing. Actually, I thought it was kind of childish to have shown that much, kind of like wanting to add shock value. Well, they got it, they can be shocked that it was canceled.

I've enjoyed the show so far. The acting is superb, the mood is dark and the pace is slow. The secrets and nuisances reveal themselves as we go along. I'll watch the rest, but I'm just very disappointed and now understand why there is no season two.

A movie this depends heavily on the screenplay/writing, editing and acting. Not so much on action, music, special effects, costumes, lighting, locations... etc. So a director has less to manage, but what they do manage has to be rock solid. You take four characters, creat four different personalities, and see how they develop as the situation becomes more dire. Remember The Poseidon Adventure? Everyone trying to be civil while also trying to survive. This is the same but minus the ship, fires, crawling through dangers and stuff.

Anyway, it kept my attention. It all seemed plausible. It's just the weak ending that I didn't care for.

The technological aspects of this episode are disturbing, annoying and ludicrous. The way the "evil" computer can literally blow up another is dramatic in itself, but how it can manipulate physical objects is absurd as evidenced in the final part of the second installment. As mentioned, the theater scenes in the end are a plot embarrassment.

Also, the wise cracking and overly dramatic Elaine Giftos's character gets very tiring. While she is very pretty, I would have preferred a nicer personality from her character.

Of course computers were mysterious boxes back in the 70's, but this attempt to make them sentient and evil was irresponsible. This topic should have been a horror movie rather than an episode of this series.

I'd bet money that just like in the 80's with bands releasing a hit album, the second release are all the 2nd rate songs that didn't make it on the first album. In more direct language, this feels like a script/screenplay that was left over from Season 1. Crockett and Tubbs laughing off VooDoo is contrived and obvious about the direction of this episode. Seems way too toung-in-cheek and juxtaposed to trying to play tough cops, this weak storyline falls flat.

This review contains some spoilers - so please be warned! I was very disappointed. What I was hoping for was another witty comedy with a completely new plot like "40 Year Old Virgin" or perhaps "Something About Mary", but what I got was a film that started off strange and fascinating... but degraded into a sappy romantic comedy with dark undertones.

Starting with Steve Carell. I like his work. "The Office" is funny to me with the dead-pan humor. I like Steve's characters when he plays the affable, innocent, shy "every-man" man thrown into wild situations. I also loved him in "Anchorman" and even enjoyed to some extent "Dinner for Schmucks". He is why I went to see this movie.

I absolutely hated Keira Knightley's character - Penny. That wacky, misfiring, emotional, free-spirit all wrapped up in a neurotic package is everything I hate in a woman. I don't find her funny, or attractive, or intelligent... I just was hoping she was going to die off or go away, but alas I had to put up with her until the end of the film. When she laughed, I had no emotion. When she cried, I had no sympathy. As a character, she failed to touch me on any level.

I'm not going to go through the plot, but suffice it to say that about 45 minutes in, I started looking at my watch. If somebody would have described this as a romantic comedy, I would have never stepped foot into the theater. I completely hate "rom-coms" because with the music and the editing being so predictable for me, I find them so very fake. Now I've been known to tear-up on occasion, when actors can convince me that the situation is somehow plausible and likely or even real. But formula movies turn me off.

Boy meets girl, girl and boy don't like each other, then some big situation happens, and girl and boy somehow find they they actually do like each other. This is exactly what happens in this movie. It was like a train going down a track.

I very nearly walked out on this movie, not caring how it ended because it was just so predictable. For me, even with the cameos from great actors I have respect for, they couldn't save this stinker of a movie.

I gave it three stars because of the originality of the plot and the acting of Steve Carell, William Petersen, and Martin Sheen. The film had it's few moments (mostly in the first half hour), but then it trailed off into a boring, predictable, sappy-sweet... forgettable formula movie.

Kind of like a car coming at you at night. At first it's bright with the headlights in your face, then it passes you with all the excitement of the sound and the wind, and then you watch the taillights fade off into the darkness.